During its 6 a.m. newscast today, KDKA-TV revealed the “big announcement” the station has been teasing in promos for the past week.
KDKA will implement an “augmented reality/virtual reality” set in the station’s Studio A, something CBS has installed at many of its owned and operated TV stations already. Pittsburgh’s KDKA becomes O&O
No. 13 (out of 17 CBS O&O markets) to get the AR/VR set, following an upgrade at the CBS station in Sacramento in May.
A CBS rep says the new studio, expected to debut in mid-August, will allow KDKA journalists, meteorologists and storytellers to “step inside virtual environments, turning complex stories into engaging visual experiences.”
Basically, it’s taking the green screen from the weather department and expanding it throughout the studio.
“They call it a bathtub almost,” said KDKA-TV president/general manager Julie Eisenman, who took the helm of the CBS affiliate in 2025. “The floor is green, the walls are green, so it is an entirely immersive experience when you walk in. We can put CGI graphics at the bottom [of the screen] and around you.”
A CBS representative would not disclose the cost of upgrading to the AR/VR set but said, “This is a meaningful investment by CBS stations in the future of local journalism. As audience expectations evolve, we’re investing in technology that enhances that storytelling.”
At launch, the existing news anchor desk set will remain and continue to be used.
“We are going to be launching with weather and sports [using the AR/VR] space and then slowly adding more elements into the newscast,” Eisenman said. “You can also slide a desk into that area and we can use that as an entire environment.”
Two monitor walls in the studio will be removed to make room for the AR/VR set, while one will remain.
“We’re still seeing if we’ll go 100% AR/VR in the future,” Eisenman said, “or if we’ll still keep some of the desks in some segments.”
Western Pennsylvania native Eisenman, a 1997 graduate of what is now PennWest Clarion, began her TV news career working as an assistant assignment editor at WPXI in the late 1990s. She worked as a producer and advanced to become a news director in multiple TV markets before moving into a GM role at WNEP-TV in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in 2021. She said if she were still working as a producer, she’d be most excited to use the AR/VR technology “to bring clarity to complex issues.”
“Instead of us just telling you, explaining how this complex issue breaks down, we can bring you into that experience with this type of storytelling,” Eisenman said.
She pointed to recent tornadoes as something the new AR/VR technology can assist with, helping meteorologists explain “what is happening in the weather at a level that the viewers have never seen before.”
For a news report, Eisenman pointed to a story the San Francisco CBS affiliate reported in 2024 that used AR/VR to show how the Port of San Francisco and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to raise the city’s historic Ferry Building by as much as seven feet in about a decade. A reporter stood on the AR/VR set next to a digital replica of the Ferry Building while a Port engineer appeared to stand on a concrete island in San Francisco Bay. As he explained the process that will be used to raise the port, graphics on the screen appeared and depicted the efforts the engineer described.
The addition of the AR/VR set will require KDKA’s existing graphics producers to get new training, and on-air talent will also have to be trained to report from inside a green screen environment (meteorologists, of course, have a head start on their news and sports peers).
“We are utilizing our sister stations from other markets, making some field trips and learning from those that have experienced all of this before us,” Eisenman said. “It’s a ton of rehearsals, which is also why I’m a little hesitant to say a launch date because we may be done with construction, but if we’re trying to figure out left from right [in front of a green screen], we have to make sure that the team is ready.”
During Monday’s 4 p.m. newscast, Barry Pintar, who referenced the AR/VR upgrade in a social media post last week, gave a tour of locations at the station that are being used while the AR/VR set is constructed.
Newscasts relocated from Studio A to a newsroom “news nook” anchor desk set that’s been infrequently used since it was installed during the station’s 2023 renovation. Weather and sports segments now emanate from KDKA’s Studio B.
“Pittsburgh Today Live” and “Talk Pittsburgh” moved to the station’s news conference room that’s all windows and looks out onto Gateway Center, but the plan is for those programs to return to their existing sets in Studio A, at least initially, after the AR/VR set is built. Then the AR/VR set will be used for some segments on those chat shows.
That KDKA is getting this update comes as little surprise, given how CBS has been rolling out the same AR/VR set at its O&Os for almost three years.
Perhaps the first indication of the new set came on June 15, when the “Pittsburgh Today Live” crew posted an Instagram video where Heather Abraham feigned distress over having to say goodbye to a large studio monitor.
A post shared by Pittsburgh Today Live (@pittsburghtodaylive)
‘Life, Larry …’
Larry David returns in “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America” (9 p.m. Friday, HBO, HBO Max), which takes the cringe comedy of David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and plugs it into historic events in a fashion reminiscent of Mel Brooks’ “History of the World Part 1.”
Timed to America’s 250th anniversary, “Life, Larry …” is executive produced by former President Barack Obama, who appears in two of the seven episodes, and Michelle Obama. The show is written by David and Jeff Schaffer, the creatives behind “Curb,” with Samuel L. Jackson as the show’s narrator.
Episodes feature sketches about writing the Declaration of Independence, Jonas Salk’s mother and her argument with a vaccine skeptic neighbor and Rosa Parks’ first, aborted attempt to refuse to sit at the back of the bus.
As usual, the humor mostly stems from David’s complaints, self-absorption and petty peccadillos, whether it’s Lewis (David) and Clark (Jerry Seinfeld) arguing over whose name should come first or Alexander Graham Bell (David) quickly discovering the downsides of his creation, the telephone. As with most sketch shows, some sketches hit and some miss, but David’s batting average here is decent (unless a viewer really tires of his style of humor).
Guest stars throughout the first season include Kathryn Hahn, Jon Hamm, Sean Hayes, Jane Krakowski, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alan Tudyk, Rita Wilson, J.B. Smoove, Henry Winkler and Pittsburgher Joe Manganiello, who plays a World War II
sailor in the Aug. 7 season finale.
There’s also a hilariously relevant-to-current-events/politics sketch that closes out episode two that will get people talking for two guest appearances and the episode’s dedication.
Canceled
Amazon’s Prime Video canceled adult animated comedy “Kevin” after one season.
Peacock canceled “Ponies” after one season.
You can reach TV writer Rob Owen at rowen@triblive.com or 412-380-8559. Follow @RobOwenTV on Threads, X, Bluesky and Facebook. Ask TV questions by email or phone. Please include your first name and location.
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