Dennis Richmond: Adios, muchacho

Long-anticipated news: KTVU’s Dennis Richmond is retiring. Dennis Richmond: the dean of Bay Area talking heads. He just came back from an extended absence occasioned by neck surgery, and his retirement this year was anticipated. His contract was up; and though it’s believable that KTVU wanted to keep him on even at a salary at or approaching seven figures, it sounds like he’d had enough. He’s leaving May 21, five days before his 65th birthday. His replacement–who will sit beside Julie Haener, in all her semi-bland blondeness?–is unknown. Dave Clark, late of L.A. and new at the station in the 5 a.m. slot, could be the man. Or maybe Frank Somerville, a pretty boy with the look of a very earnest deer in the headlights, who was doing fill-in duty for Richmond.

And truthfully, he has looked like he’d had enough for several years, anyway. More and more often he has looked and sounded tired, impatient, and uninterested.

The Chronicle has the story: Longtime anchor Dennis Richmond to leave KTVU in May

And KTVU has a slideshow on Dennis’s many looks over the past few decades: Dennis Richmond through the years

Leslie Griffith Non-Watch: Terminal Edition

Leslie Griffith and KTVU made it official this morning: She’s out, and life and the station’s news shows–from which she’s been missing for 87 days–will go on. KTVU put out a kissy-face mutual press release in which Griffith says she’ll pursue the inevitable “other interests.” For its part, the station professes its undying love for her. The big immediate change on the news shows is that the anchors will no longer have to say, “Leslie Griffith has the night off.” Of course, the untold story is the behind-the-scenes melodrama and nastiness that led to The Vanishing in the first place. The world likely can do without all that, though.

So long, Leslie. Thanks for the memories from your early, bright, relatively carefree years. Thanks for all the fodder for snide commentary. And I hope you wrung every last dime out of the station you and your lawyer (her lawyer is her dad, I hear) could get.

Related earlier posts:

The Case of the Missing Anchor

Newscast Gone Bad

Newscast Gone Bad, Again

Leslie Griffith: The Career

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