ABC-owned stations switch to new redesign matching network’s news site

All of ABC’s owned television stations have followed the mothership’s move to an updated website design.

The group’s eight stations in major markets ranging from New York to Fresno, have all migrated to a consistent design that shares many design elements from the recent updates made to ABCNews.com.

All station sites for WABC in New York, New York; KABC in Los Angeles, California; WLS in Chicago, Illinois; KTRK in Houston, Texas; KGO in San Francisco, California; KFSN in Fresno, California and WTVD in Raleigh, North Carolina, now sport a bright blue header bar with quick links to news stories broken down by geography. There’s also a “latest” bar that can include topics of note and other links the station wants to promote. The upper right of the blue bar is still used to showcase local weather conditions.

Local branding is in the upper left and, in the case of at least one station, WLS in Chicago, also finally saw the transition over to the station’s new logotype that it appears to have been slowly transitioning to since updating its graphics package back in June 2023.

The stations’ live streams continue to be featured prominently to the right of a lead story. Most on-screen elements now have rounded corners and feel more boxed in (even if that box is imaginary), giving it a slightly more mobile UI look.

Also like the parent site, headlines are now displayed in sans serif Post Grotesk with body copy in Tiempos Text. 

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Prior to the update, headlines were in a mix of Tahoma and Helvetica with body copy in Georgia on most devices.

Overall, the station website update could probably be described as more of a redesign, while the ABCNews.com updates were more of a design update, with the layout, colors and overall framework of the new sites significantly different from the old station sites.

It appears the redesigns started rolling out in early October 2024.