Most notably.. Rob Johnson gets a new co-anchor

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: July 22, 2010 - Tower Ticker : WBBM hires WCBS' Kate Sullivan in latest anchor shuffle : : Kate Sullivan, a morning anchor at CBS New York flagship WCBS-TV, is headed to Chicago's perennially struggling, oft-changing WBBM-Ch. 2, according to multiple reports. : Sullivan will be teamed with Rob Johnson on Channel 2's 10 p.m. weeknight newscast after Labor Day, a Chicago Public Media report said. A spokeswoman for CBS-owned WBBM confirmed staff members were told of the appointment Wednesday but said a public announcement won't be made until next week, when Sullivan gets to the station. : Johnson has been anchoring solo on the late newscast for a little less than 15 months, and Channel 2 management has pointed to that as a way for the station to distinguish its newscasts from others in the market instead of just a way to reduce costs. : What truly has distinguished WBBM, however, is its ever-changing anchor lineup. Channel 2 changes newscasters the way the Chicago Bears change quarterbacks, but not quite as successfully. The return to two anchors on Channel 2 would be the station's 11th switch at 10 p.m. in the last 10 years. : Before Johnson's solo run, he was teamed with Anne State for a year or so, and paired with Diann Burns before that. That alignment replaced Burns and Antonio Mora, who replaced Mora and Tracy Townsend, who replaced Mora and Linda MacLennan, who replaced an earlier incarnation of Mora and Townsend. That was preceded by Townsend and David Kerley, Kerley and MacLennan, and a solo turn by Carol Marin, who began a nine-month run in February 2000, effectively replacing the five-year combo of MacLennan and Lester Holt. : Sullivan should try to make herself at home, but history obviously suggests renting rather than taking out a mortgage. : State, hired from San Diego by an earlier WBBM management team in 2008 to be Johnson's co-anchor at 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., was pulled off all but the Channel 2 5 p.m. show on April 30, 2009, and released outright in late March when WBBM opted not to renew her contract. : The New York Post reported the WBBM move explains why Sullivan, who has been co-anchor of WCBS' 5 a.m.-to-7 a.m. newscast since April 2006, was "conspicuously absent in recent promos" that showcased everyone else on the program. : A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Sullivan's travels include an internship and general assignment job at WSBT-TV in South Bend, Ind., as well as positions at WJAR-TV in Providence, R.I., and Little Rock's KATV-TV en route to New York. : Sullivan appeared on a list of top 30 Irish Americans in the media, compiled by Irish Voice and IrishCentral.com. Among the others included were the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, NBC's Brian Williams, Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Megyn Kelly, CNN's Soledad O'Brien, Clear Channel Radio President and Chief Executive John Hogan and Peter Dunn, who's president of CBS Television Stations and general manager of WCBS. : When Johnson was named the sole anchor of WBBM's 10 p.m. newscast, Channel 2 boss Bruno Cohen explained to the Chicago Tribune: "Our need is to not only improve our newscasts but to make them clearly different from the competitors in town, both in the way they're presented and our story selection and editorial thrust. So we want to see how this goes." : Despite a surge in the ratings late last year when NBC-owned WMAQ-Ch. 5 was saddled briefly with "The Jay Leno Show" as its 10 p.m. lead-in, WBBM apparently has seen how it went.

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