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Open from the 10pm newscast on Nexstar's ABC affiliate in Nashville, Tennessee. Recorded on Thursday, February 5, 2026.

Here's a first: a Nexstar station that lost their voiceover but opted not to use SpotVoice for the most part (Glenn Hansen has popped up on some IDs). WKRN was previously using Brian Lee, until corporate told their stations in Q4 2025 to wind down contracts with their voiceover people.

Originally set to go the AI route, the company instead had their stations switch to SpotVoice. This is a voiceover service that has been around about a decade and was originally intended to do low-cost, quick-turn voiceovers for "spots", or commercials produced for local advertisers (think mom and pop businesses) by local TV stations. Somewhere along the line, someone (most likely Hoak Media, they were really the first to do this) realized the terms of the agreement allowed them to also use this service for station imaging, since it allows for unlimited use for a flat rate, so they did, since most conventional voiceover artists do charge a bit more (for better interpreted copy and VO work but I digress - remember SpotVoice focuses mainly on high volume, which is mainly enforced by limiting all reads to no more than 60 seconds). Eventually other companies started to follow this lead in smaller markets, but Nexstar is really the first to start using this service for station imaging in much larger markets. Gray was actually using a lot of these voices more than Nexstar so I associate a lot of them with Gray more.

WKRN apparently did not like any of the options, so they decided to use station talent instead. Most newer station image promos now just have the talent on-camera (so if it's a weather promo, a met will be the focal point of the promo etc). There are other promos where various other station staffers will do voiceovers. For the news opens, so far, weeknight anchor Bob Mueller does the morning newscasts and here, morning anchor Mark Kelly reciprocates and does the 10pm. I haven't had a chance to catch the other newscasts and see who's doing those, but I wouldn't surprised if it's Mueller on the mornings and midday and Mark Kelly in the evenings to avoid overlap.

I honestly applaud the use of station talent. I think it's pretty creative, especially when corporate gave them a lemon (phasing out the top-tier Atlas-repped voices). They managed to make lemonade out of it, and hopefully more stations will go this route.

Graphics and music (MOD_03 and "Ascend" from Stephen Arnold Music) remain the same.

Anchored by Bob Mueller.

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