More: What happened to Bob Sirott?

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: Bob Sirott leaves WMAQ-Ch. 5 : Bob Sirott, long expected to take over Warner Saunders' 10 p.m. anchor chair on WMAQ-Ch. 5, instead is leaving the NBC-owned station three weeks after Saunders' retirement. : Frank Whittaker, Channel 5's station manager and vice president for news, told staff of the departure in a memo this morning. : A veteran Chicago radio and television personality and former CBS News correspondent, Sirott already had replaced Saunders as co-anchor on Channel 5's 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts in January and was Saunders' primary back-up at 10 p.m. alongside Allison Rosati. That included long stretches last fall and this spring as Saunders battled health issues. : Sources say a clause already in Sirott's current multi-year contract assured him of the 10 p.m. broadcast opening, but the added title would have come with a pay increase and the station sought to shorten the guaranteed terms in exchange. Negotiations failed to produce a settlement to keep Sirott on the air at 10 p.m. So he is leaving the station while continuing to be paid under the terms of his existing deal. : "I'm telling my family not to worry," Sirott joked by e-mail. "I'm still on Channel 5. You just can't see me due to the digital conversion." : Sirott said he appreciated the high-profile he enjoyed at WMAQ, including co-anchoring the station's election night coverage in November. : "Thanks to them I have to believe my 'stock' went up, so I have nothing to complain about," Sirott wrote. "I'm a lucky broadcaster. I appreciate the confidence they had in me. This was my third different go-round with NBC. If there's a fourth and Larry [Wert, NBC Local's president for the Central and Western regions] and Frank are still in charge, I'd love to work for them again." : WMAQ will likely use other anchors such as Marion Brooks, Dick Johnson and Rob Stafford in Sirott's place, with Stafford, a former "Dateline NBC" correspondent, seen as having the inside track. : "We appreciate all that Bob has done for us for the last three-and-a-half years," Whittaker said in his memo to staff this morning, noting Sirott will continue to work with Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s WGN-AM 720. : Channel 5 quickly scrubbed Sirott's biography from its nbcchicago.com Web site, but still had Saunders' bio online as of late Thursday morning. Saunders' voice is also still heard by callers to the station's general phone number. : A Chicago native and former NBC page who became known as a local radio personality in the 1970s, Sirott transitioned into television with CBS-owned WBBM-Ch. 2 in 1980, later becoming a correspondent on CBS News' "West 57th" newsmagazine alongside Steve Kroft and Meredith Vieira. : Sirott went on to anchor programs for Chicago's WMAQ, Fox-owned WFLD-Ch. 32 and public broadcaster WTTW-Ch. 11, in addition to reporting occasionally for CBS News' "Sunday Morning." He returned to Channel 5 in January 2006. : Since 2007, Sirott also has hosted WGN-AM's noon show. He was to begin a vacation on Thursday but expected to return to the air on July 1. : (Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune)

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