NBC 5 Chicago and Telemundo Chicago have squeezed their entire operation into a single, nearly 70,000-square-foot floor inside NBC Tower, in the same second-floor space that once cranked out daytime talk shows. The revamped footprint now blends open newsroom workstations, multiple on-air studios, and production tech tuned for streaming and social, giving Chicago viewers both a major technical upgrade and what feels like a closing chapter on the city’s daytime-TV era.
“This floor was sitting here empty,” NBCU Local Chicago president Kevin Cross said, and the build-out now packs in multiple on-air studios, robotic cameras, augmented and virtual reality, and roughly 20 go-live positions spread across the floor. The setup is designed so reporters and producers can jump between broadcast, streaming, podcast, and social workflows without trekking between floors. Axios reported these details and staff commentary from a tour of the new space.
NBCUniversal says the overhaul was a multi-year, roughly $70 million project that kicked off in 2021 and pulled operations that had been scattered across several floors into a single, purpose-built newsroom. The company’s January announcement also highlighted that the move brings the national NBC News Chicago bureau into closer day-to-day contact with local teams. NBCUniversal outlined the investment and the technology driving the redesign.
The Chicago Tribune’s tour of the finished floor notes that the consolidation followed NBC’s renegotiation of a lease set to expire at the end of 2025, shrinking the station’s downtown footprint to about 70,000 square feet. The Tribune described a 15,000-square-foot central hub with high ceilings, glassed-in meeting rooms, and employee perks like a speakeasy and game room. The Chicago Tribune provided the walk-through coverage and interviews with station leaders.
From Jerry Springer To A Digital Newsroom
The second-floor stage that once produced programs hosted by Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Steve Harvey, and Judge Greg Mathis now serves as a consolidated hub for local reporting and digital distribution. Axios framed the conversion as a cultural pivot for Chicago television and noted that daytime production largely shifted to the coasts after shows such as Judge Mathis wrapped.
A Sign Of Changing TV Economics
The overhaul also spotlighted different approaches among Chicago broadcasters: while some local stations have trimmed staff in recent months, NBC opted to condense and reinvest in a smaller, more tech-forward footprint. The Chicago Tribune contrasted WMAQ’s consolidation and spending with recent cuts at other local outlets, underscoring a broader reset in how local TV is produced and paid for.
Built For Streaming, Not Just Broadcast
Station leaders say the new newsroom is tailored to current audience habits, with traditional newscasts sharing space with longer digital pieces, podcasts and social clips that can all be turned around from the same floor. NBCUniversal describes a shift to cloud storage, fewer on-site server rooms and automated production tools meant to speed how content moves out the door.
Whether the investment delivers will come down to audience engagement across streaming platforms and how well the newsroom settles into faster, cross-platform routines. For now, the single floor stands as a bet that Chicago’s local newsrooms can be rebuilt around digital-first practices even as the city’s big daytime TV production era fades into history.
