KHON Upgraded Lighting Grid Delivers Immediate ROI with Zylight
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LOS ANGELES –Â Zylight, a leading manufacturer of innovative, premium LED lighting solutions, today announced KHON, the FOX affiliate for Honolulu (DMA #69), has revamped its lighting grid with Zylight F8-100 LED Fresnels and IS3c wide soft lights. According to Denise Viesta, director of engineering, replacing the studio’s traditional tungsten 1K fixtures with Zylights will pay for itself within the year.
Owned by Media General, KHON has a morning news block starting at 4:30 a.m., 90 minutes of news starting at 5 p.m., and 30-minute newscasts at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. It also has two 30-minute newscasts on Saturday and Sunday. Its digital multicast channel, the local CW affiliate, also airs the 9 p.m. newscast.
The new lighting was prompted by the addition of Living 808, KHON’s one-hour live lifestyle show that was launched on Feb. 9. The show airs live at 8 a.m. and is rebroadcast on the CW at 4 p.m. Adding the new show’s casual set required a major overhaul to the studio, including moving and completely relighting the news set. Viesta said the redesign provided the station with the opportunity to replace old fixtures with new lighting and improve the on-air look of the station’s broadcasts.
Hawaii has more than double the national average in electricity rates, and Viesta said the ROI from the new Zylights has been “incredibly fantastic as far as our energy savings.” Even with the addition of an hour-long show and keeping the HVAC set at its previous level (there are still some tungsten lights in use), KHON has reduced its electric bill by at least $5,000 each month since installing the Zylight instruments.
Carlson Look, a director at KHON, designed the new lighting for the studio and led the install in early January. On the news set, 10 F8-100s are being used mostly for key lights, replacing a number of aging tungsten and even more recent fluorescent fixtures. Living 808 has four F8-100s for key lights and three IS3c instruments for fill. He said the on-air improvement has been so dramatic that competing stations have asked about the new lights.
One of the reasons KHON removed fluorescent fixtures from its studio was a lack of color temperature consistency. With the F8-100, however, Look said the quality of the light is excellent – a traditional, focusable, single-shadow light source with no color fluctuations. “The flesh tones just pop,” he said. “It’s the old-fashioned tungsten look without the fluorescent feel.”
If Look has one “complaint” about the F8-100, it is too bright. “I had to keep dimming it because it had too much output,” he said. Thankfully, KHON purchased the Zylight Remote, so Look was able to easily adjust brightness using the built-in ZyLink wireless technology in every Zylight.
Look had a number of lighting challenges – from a news set shared by anchors with very different skin tones to an anchor who regularly wears eyeglasses – and the F8-100 has handled all of them. “It’s amazing. I do a lot of freelance work, and very few fixtures compare to the F8,” he said.
ABOUT ZYLIGHT LLC
Founded in 2003, Zylight LLC is the leading manufacturer of intelligent LED lighting instruments for the film and video production industry. Every model in its easy-to-use lighting system produces fully calibrated bright white light, while some also provide a spectrum of adjustable colors without gels. Full wireless control and DMX integration are included, and AC or DC power options are available. The Zylight state-of-the-art LED system is truly the most unique and flexible lighting system on the market today. With more than 50 dealers worldwide, Zylight continues to develop innovative LED lighting solutions to help make your job easier. More Than Bright–Zylight. Find out more at www.zylight.com. Â
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