Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Triple CBC Tower Lighting Ushers in Holidays

06/12/2021

This year was special as it was a symbol of the community returning to some semblance of normalcy after 20 months in isolation. Adding the lighting of the towers at American Tobacco Campus and Rocky Mount Mills is a great way to showcase the reach of Capitol Broadcasting and reinforce our commitment to the regions we serve.

WRAL-TVs Leesa Moore

WRAL-TV's Michelle McNeil captured this photo of the WRAL-TV aglow for the holidays after the Tower Lighting on Wednesday, December 1, 2021.

Capitol Broadcasting brought the best of three different company locations together to brighten the Triangle for the holidays by lighting the towers at WRAL-TV, American Tobacco and Rocky Mount Mills on Wednesday, December 1, 2021.

In a first step towards a return to normalcy, events for the public were held at American Tobacco and Rocky Mount Mills, with fun from all three locations broadcast in a half-hour special on WRAL-TV at 7pm.

A Long-time Tradition

Several employees involved in the annual event have been part of bringing the fun to the Triangle for many years.

This my 21st Tower lighting I had and active role in, said WRAL-TV News Chief Photographer Ed Wilson. I have seen 31 Tower lightings during my time at CBC.

The event was exciting as always, he said of the 2021 event. I love this time of year so much joy and hope in the air.

CBC has been lighting the TV tower for the holidays for 63 years.

I truly believe turning our 300-foot TV tower into a lighted tree is CBCs gift to the community, said WRAL-TV Director of News Operations, Sports & Special Projects Leesa Moore. It is a time-honored tradition that Im proud to have been part of for over 30 years.

WRAL-TV News Producer Kelly Riner plays a key role in the production every year.

Tower Lighting is always a HUGE project for multiple departments and CBC divisions, she said. Its great getting to work with everyone on something thats happy and brings joy!

From the CBC teams who decorate the company properties to the Master Control operators and engineers who make sure the lights light and the broadcast stays on air, a large number of employees come together to make the night a success.

I really feel like the decorations outside looked the best theyve ever looked, said Riner. From our anchors on the plaza to the ones in the field, everyone brought their A-game.

A large crew worked on the ground, and two staffers even took to the air as WRAL-TV News Photographer Keith Baker and pilot Robbie Jones provided an incredible Sky 5 view of the festivities.

WRAL-TV personalities did hosting duties on all three campuses.

WRAL-TV's Dan Haggerty had a very special helper from the crowd, Libby, to help him flip the switch to light the Rocky Mount Mills Tower on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. (photo courtesy of RMM's Julie Baggett)

Lena Tillett pulled double duty doing live shots and emceeing the live event at ATC, explained Riner. Dan Haggerty found a little girl in the crowd who was so excited about the tower lighting there. He let her push the magic button and made for one of the most memorable moments in the show. Our featured entertainer, Rory John Zak got David to dance a little!

WATCH: WRAL.com VIDEO So cute: Little girl presses button to light tower at Rocky Mount Mills

The night is full of excited energy among the staff.

We had a great team in the control room and in the remote truck outside, said Riner. There was truly so much experience working on that show and I think thats what made it all work. We were certainly thrown some curveballs and challenges, but everything was clean on air just a true testament to the team we had in EVERY position.

Im so grateful the company values this tradition and am honored to be part of it every year.

WRAL-TVs Kelly Riner

CBC stays in tune with the community, to truly make the event meaningful.

We always try to match the tone of the special to the year our viewers have experienced, said Moore. In 2001 for example, we produced a more somber, but powerful program with The Durham Police Choir as our performers. We ended the show with a collection of first responder vehicles lining the WRAL driveway. It was a message of thanks and hope.

Having actual events in Durham and Rocky Mount Mills, as well as having a few viewers standing outside to see the anchors flip the switch in Raleigh, was a big change from last December.

This year was special as it was a symbol of the community returning to some semblance of normalcy after 20 months in isolation, said Moore. Adding the lighting of the towers at American Tobacco Campus and Rocky Mount Mills is a great way to showcase the reach of Capitol Broadcasting and reinforce our commitment to the regions we serve.

American Tobacco handed out 2,000 light wands courtesy of Dominion Energy and NC811 at the Tower Lighting on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. (Photo courtesy of ATC's Valerie Ward)

Lucky Strike Lights in Durham, Fun Brewing in Rocky Mount

CBC lit the Lucky Strike Tower at American Tobacco for the 17th time this year. An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 folks came to participate in the fun in person as the program showcased young talent from Durham and around the Triangle. American Tobacco gave away 2,000 light wants courtesy of Dominion Energy and NC811.

The energy created by the LIVE audience was amazing! said ATC Events & Property Experience Director Valerie Ward.

The crew at ATC was happy to welcome guests back to the nights festivities. Last year the tower lighting went on with no guests due to the pandemic.

Rocky Mount Mills hosted a variety of activities and special guests for the folks who came to campus for their arm of the tower lighting trio.

We had so much fun kicking
LINK: https://www.capitolbroadcasting.com/2021/12/06/triple-cbc-tower-lighti...
See more stories from cbc

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

28/08/2026

CBS L.A. Runs Two Hot Control Rooms, Dual Broadcasts for Rams-Chargers Preseason Game

KCBS takes the Chargers side, KCAL takes the Rams - with feeds out to 18 partner...

28/08/2026

Buddy Turns Childhood Comfort into Midnight Terror

(L-R) Topher Grace, Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Casper Kelly, and Keegan-Michael Key pose with the character Buddy at the Buddy Premiere during the 2026 S...

28/08/2026

IK Multimedia announce Sinphonica Maestosa Strings

The Italian orchestra, reimagined IK Multimedia have announced the upcoming launch of Sinphonica, a new family of Italian orchestral instruments designed f...

28/08/2026

Voxis from CEDAR Audio

Voice-isolation plug-in boasts sub-10ms latency Launched in 2025, CEDAR Audio's Icons range was created with the aim of bringing the company's renow...

28/08/2026

Charter Takes Scripps to Court Over Carriage of Las Vegas' KMCC

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/08/2026

Backlight Expands Creative Operations Platform with AI-p...

Global media technology company Backlight will showcase its latest innovations across Iconik and Wildmoka live video creation and distribution at IBC2026 (booth...

28/08/2026

Emergent Brings Its AI-Enhanced Content Production Platfo...

Emergent, a developer of browser-based, AI-enhanced content production tools, will present its complete AI-enhanced content production platform at IBC2026, exhi...

28/08/2026

Joseph Bell Announces VFX & Animation World Atlas 2026

Joseph Bell Announces VFX & Animation World Atlas 2026 Joseph Bell August 28, 2026 0 Comments Joseph Bell's Visual Effects & Animation World Atlas...

28/08/2026

Paris-Troyes en Champagne Goes Live on France.tv with AVEO

Paris-Troyes en Champagne Goes Live on France.tv with AVEO Brie Clayton August 28, 2026 0 Comments Regional audiovisual company builds broadcastgrade ...

28/08/2026

DHD to Introduce its Third-Generation Audio Mixing Console at IBC 2026

DHD to Introduce its Third-Generation Audio Mixing Console at IBC 2026 Brie Clayton August 28, 2026 0 Comments DHD.audio has chosen IBC 2026 as the la...

28/08/2026

Grass Valley AMPP Provides an All-Encompassing Approach t...

Encompass Digital Media and Grass Valley are expanding their collaboration with the launch of Altitude Playout Plus, a software-defined channel origination plat...

28/08/2026

Yospace releases new Ad Presentation solution

Yospace, the trusted leader in Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI), has announced the release of its Ad Presentation solution, which enables broadcasters to apply non-li...

28/08/2026

TSL Showcases Reduced Complexity for Control and Monitori...

TSL Showcases Reduced Complexity for Control & Monitoring Across IP Workflows at IBC2026 New TSL Hummingbird capabilities including Dante control routing, toge...

28/08/2026

Lutz Rathmann to Become CEO of Riedel Communications

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/08/2026

Spectrum Offers Lower-Income Internet Customers Free Amazon Prime

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/08/2026

FCC Exempts Public Access Channels from Closed Captioning

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/08/2026

Elon Musk's X Launches NFL Gametime on X

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/08/2026

GlobalM and Lamhas Partner to Expand Managed IP Broadcast...

GlobalM and Lamhas Satellite Services today announced a new agreement that will see GlobalMs GMX technology deployed as part of Lamhas expanding managed IP broa...

28/08/2026

Boland Communications Introduces SMPTE ST 2110 Option for...

Integrated 25GbE Connectivity Delivers UHD Video Directly to Up to Two Monitors, Eliminates External Gateways, and Supports SMPTE ST 2022-7 Network-Path Protect...

28/08/2026

JT-DMF Invites IBC2026 Attendees to Help Shape the Future...

Interactive Ask Me Anything sessions will connect broadcasters and technology providers with the experts developing a practical, interoperable roadmap for sof...

28/08/2026

TAG Video Systems Cuts Live Production Latency Below Two...

At IBC2026, TAG will show sub-2-frame latency and 800 Gbps of aggregate scale for uncompressed ST 2110 monitoring in software, live MXL interoperability with pa...

28/08/2026

SportsBox BHVs Ultra-Compact 4K Remote Switcher Moves fro...

SportsBox, BHV's Ultra-Compact 4K Remote Switcher, Moves from Development to Production at IBC 2026 SportsBox brings flexibility without compromise to high...

28/08/2026

Riedel Evolves Leadership and Global Go-to-Market Organiz...

Lutz Rathmann named CEO of Riedel Communications Anthony Zuyderhoff to lead unified customer-facing organization as CCO Riedel Communications is strengthenin...

28/08/2026

Scripps Research establishes endowed fund honoring institute president and CEO Pete Schultz

LA JOLLA, CA-Scripps Research has established the Pete Schultz Fund for Innovati...

28/08/2026

Chemists develop simpler method to make molecular building block for drug development

LA JOLLA, CA-Chemical structures called cyclopropanols are among the most useful...

28/08/2026

Sky Secures Approval for Major Livingston Campus Investment, Reinforcing Long-Term Commitment to Scotland

Friday 28 August 2026 Sky Secures Approval for Major Livingston Campus Investme...

27/08/2026

ESPN Adds College Football Saturdays to Disney+ This Fall

ESPN and Disney are launching College Football Saturdays, adding two college football games per week to Disney for U.S. subscribers as part of their existing ...

27/08/2026

IBC 2026: Zixi to Showcase Live Video Platform and Broadcaster v19

Zixi will exhibit at IBC2026 (Hall 5, Stand 5.A76, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), demonstrating the Zixi Platform and the latest release of Zixi Broadcaster, ...

27/08/2026

NDI Surpasses 1.2 Million Hardware Nodes as IBC2026 Showcase Expands

NDI has announced that its ecosystem has surpassed 1.2 million NDI-enabled hardware nodes worldwide, spanning products from more than 200 hardware brands across...

27/08/2026

Clear-Com FreeSpeak Cell Trialed During Rio Carnival Before Commercial Launch

Clear-Com conducted a pre-launch field trial of FreeSpeak Cell during Carnival 2026 in Rio de Janeiro, in partnership with Brazilian systems integrator Savana C...

27/08/2026

IBC 2026: BVH SportsBox Remote Mixer Becomes Reality

BHV returns to IBC 2026 with an important milestone for its own SportsBox: the broadcast industry's smallest remote vision mixer and format processor has mo...

27/08/2026

TOGETHXR and Snapchat Announce Second Snap the Gap Athlete Cohort

TOGETHXR and Snapchat have announced the second cohort of their Snap the Gap content creator program, welcoming nine athletes as Snap Stars. The program provide...

27/08/2026

CNBC UK Selects MediaKind Beam for Live News Infrastructure

MediaKind has announced that CNBC UK has selected Beam to modernize its contribution and distribution infrastructure for live broadcast operations. The deployme...

27/08/2026

Monitor Engineer Chris Dwight Deploys Sennheiser Spectera on Puscifer and A Perfect Circle Tours

Monitor engineer Chris Dwight has deployed Sennheiser's Spectera wideband bi...

27/08/2026

IBC 2026: Telestream Expands UP Platform

Telestream has announced an expansion of its UP cloud-native platform, adding capabilities for orchestrating Telestream services, third-party technologies, and ...

27/08/2026

Swerve TV Signs Multi-Year Partnership with GLORY Kickboxing

Swerve TV has signed a multi-year partnership with GLORY Kickboxing, bringing live GLORY events and library programming to Swerve Combat, Swerve TV's free a...

27/08/2026

AFP and Dalet Integrate AFP Content Into Dalet Flex Newsroom Workflow

Dalet has announced a new integrated content experience with Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Dalet Flex, designed to bring AFP's editorial metadata into the p...

27/08/2026

IBC 2026: Grass Valley to Demonstrate Integrated Live Production Environment

Grass Valley will demonstrate an integrated live production environment at IBC2026 (Booth 9.A01, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), combining K-Frame, Maverik X, ...

27/08/2026

NWSL and Roku Expand Partnership with Sunday Night Streaming Package

The National Women's Soccer League and Roku have announced an expanded partnership, with the Roku Sports Channel becoming the exclusive streaming home of ei...

27/08/2026

Fubo Adds ACC Network Extra and SEC Network+ to Streaming Service

FuboTV has announced the launch of ACC Network Extra (ACCNX) and SEC Network (SECN ) on the Fubo streaming service at no additional cost to subscribers with En...

27/08/2026

Moment Branding: Using Sound to Create More Powerful Fan Experiences

Sports marketers have entered the experiential age. Today, sports teams, leagues, and venues are increasingly using immersive interactions and real world events...

27/08/2026

IBC 2026: MultiDyne to Debut MDoG-8800 12G Fiber Transport Module

MultiDyne will introduce the MDoG-8800 at IBC2026 (Stand 11.C12, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), extending its openGear portfolio with a high-density fiber tra...

27/08/2026

IBC 2026: JT-DMF To Host Ask Me Anything' Sessions

The Joint Task Force on the Dynamic Media Facility (JT-DMF), an initiative of AMWA and the EBU, will host a series of informal Ask Me Anything sessions during...

27/08/2026

Homestream Syncs Duke, Auburn and Georgia Tech Football, Basketball Radio Calls to Live TV Broadcasts

Homestream, a mobile app that automatically syncs a team's local radio broad...

27/08/2026

Spikes Under the Lights Brings Collegiate Volleyball to AT&T Stadium in a Made-for-TV Event Built for Scale

A packager for TNT Sports, Kwokman Productions is on hand for the unique event w...

27/08/2026

25 Seasons of New York Yankees on YES Network: The Day 1 Crew Looks Back on a Quarter Century in the Bronx - and Stamford

After more than 3,000 games, five members of YES Network's original staff re...

27/08/2026

Dreamtonics unveil Instrument X orchestral alternative

Physical modelling orchestral instrument announced Following their recent cryptic hints, Dreamtonics have officially revealed the latest addition to their s...