KGW Takes Us Into The Future (With a Little More Makeup)

KGW sent out a press release yesterday announcing a "historic press conference" at their studio this morning.
It was pretty mysterious, promising only "an announcement of a historic addition to KGW's News Gathering Operation."
Anticipation, as you can imagine, was pretty high as we all gathered on a set at the news station. KGW president and general manager DJ Wilson welcomed us, and then dropped the bomb via a shiver-inducing video:
[youtube qS3FyEClZCs]
The station has decided to go "full-power" HD, meaning that, starting January 21st, all of their news and local programming will be in the High Definition format. KGW is the first Portland station to make the move (fewer than 60 have done it in the country), which station officials say is costing about $3.5 million and will require 500 new pieces of equipment and thousands of miles of new wiring.
The station is building a whole new set for its newscasts to accommodate the new format as well. More importantly, according to news director Rod Gramer, KGW is bringing in a specialist from Fort Worth to help anchors and reporters with their "on-air look." Apparently the HD format and cameras are "very unforgiving," and makeup for the telecasts is a whole new ballgame.
The station put together a little montage for us to watch of some of the new, brightly colored, extremely high-resolution footage they'd taken in HD. Let's check it out, after its been videotaped with a small digital camera and compressed for the web (What's going on in the last shot?):
[youtube zw8QKB3mIMs]
So how will our lives be better with KGW broadcasting its news in HD? Gramer offered this (mildly inappropriate) example: "You can imagine how brilliant and bold the coverage would be for these tragic floods we're having in the state right now."