NewsNation, the new national newscast from WGN America, is on the air with three daily hours of news content in primetime.

Chicago Scenic collaborated with the design company Clickspring on the fabrication and installation of the NewsNation newsroom and studio sets at WGN America’s Chicago headquarters.

Showman Fabricators also collaborated on the project, which was a fast one: only about 14 weeks from start to finish.

NewsNation is a three-hour nightly newscast that is airing on WGN America, Nexstar Media Group’s wholly owned cable network that reaches 75 million television households across the U.S. NewsNation will also deliver news 24-hours a day online through a new app called NewsNationNow.

The design of the News Nation broadcast studio features large-scale scenic elements that allow for camera angles and great backdrops, with state-of-the-art broadcast technology incorporated throughout.

“The project is beautiful and the combination of newsroom and studio elements will give NewsNation a dramatic look,” said Doug Pokorny, senior project manager at Chicago Scenic. “This project involved unique, twin challenges: close coordination with partners on a tight timeline and installation while dealing with all the Covid-19 restrictions to guard against exposure to the coronavirus.”

The coordination challenges on this project, and how the various parties met them—are perhaps the most interesting aspects of the WGN America project to a fabricator’s eye.

“We had an unusual level of coordination here, between Chicago Scenic and Showman,” said Pokorny. “Think about it: The spectacular end result is one cohesive unit built by two companies, us in Chicago and Showman on the East Coast. Yet, with the final product, you can’t tell where one started and one ended—and that’s two companies, two different fabrication techniques—and yet the pieces come together brilliantly, all the finishes and paints match perfectly. And the client is thrilled!” See chicagoscenic.com