[DTV]

Sets were probably much more straight forward, a desk and a solid backdrop with some lights shining on it, and a plasma wheeled in front. No fancy screens.

Well that is pretty much the crux of the matter. Historically, most set elements were constructed out-of-studio and merely brought in and plonked where they needed to go - the only other thing to be done was correctly place and keystone any rear projectors and sort the lighting out.

These days, screens have to be installed and calibrated (which often requires frames to be built in studio), LED lighting strips have to be organised correctly, etc. - there's just so much more to do. Plus, any new tech requires a bit of training and piloting is increasingly standard for new sets, which it wasn't so much previously, or certainly not as rigorous.

But that is the central trajectory of news sets in the last twenty years - they've become vastly more technical, which makes them more expensive, harder and more time-consuming to install and consequently means they are expected to last much longer. I mean, the cream-and-red sets were installed in a weekend, N6's Barco set took two weeks to install and the most recent national set took about eight months!