NBC 10 and 6 ABC Are Waging a Propaganda War Through Comcast Center Renderings

Actual Philly skyline

Since today is apparently the day where every columnist has some diagnosis for what’s eating Chip Kelly and the Eagles, and since I can’t even with that, let’s turn our attention to the fun and completely ridiculous propaganda war NBC 10 and 6 ABC are waging via their respective Comcast Center weather report renderings.

Wait, what?

Here is the model NBC uses for its backdrop during FIRST ALERT WEATHER ALL CAPS– notice anything odd?

As you can see, Philadelphia is a cold, dark place, not unlike Gotham between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight rises. But there’s the (NBC parent company) Comcast Center, towering over the city like a shining beacon of inspiration keeping careful watch over this urban hellscape, where a river of tears (and probably oil) dares inhabitants to swin to greener pastures where entire swaths of cities aren’t rendered as rows of torn down sheetrock. The Comcast Center is not the hero Philly deserves, but it’s the one it needs. Oh and it’s also roughly a BILLION feet tall and dwarfs those other buildings, some of which are, in reality, just 130 feet or so shorter.

Meanwhile, over on 6 ABC, which is decidedly not owned by Comcast, the cable giant’s tower plays a much different role in the city’s skyline:

Center City buildings and landmarks are rendered beautiful in full-color. Trees sprout from 12th Street in euphoric jubilation as though someone poured Herbel Essences all over their roots. Ohhhhhh yes! Yes! Yes! YES! There might be two Kimmel Centers. A wall of weeping row homes stand guard against an attack from the west or Wynewood. And then there’s the Comcast Center… the city’s Death Star, blackened and appearing as though it’s a poorly drawn shadow cast by the old Bell Atlantic Tower, Philly’s original thumb drive from before there were thumb drives.

It’s a tale of two cities on local news weather reports. In which do you live?