New | Looking familiar? Award-winning US designer gives CCTV nightly news show 'international' look

The studio of CCTV’s flagship news programme has been given an “international” facelift by a famous US set designer to propel it into the ranks of broadcasters such as the BBC.

After a global search, multiple Emmy-winner Jim Fenhagen was brought in to redesign the set of Xinwen Lianbo, which broadcasts daily from the iconic CCTV building in Beijing and has more than 100 million viewers. He designed the sets of Good Morning America, The Colbert Report and The Daily Show which broadcast in the US and was tasked with bringing the state broadcaster up to their level.

“They wanted to be on a par with the BBC, CNN, and Sky News – to be cutting-edge and to be an equal,” Fenhagen told Fast Company magazine. “Money wasn’t the defining issue. They wanted the most contemporary tools and an ‘international style’, not a Chinese look.”

He added: “We offered them designs referencing Chinese culture, but they were rejected.”

The set uses the most cutting edge LED technology – high-resolution screens with 2.5mm pixels LEDs. Before, the highest resolution screens had 4mm pixels.