Sirott balks at station's bid to shorten contract

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: Sirott out at Channel 5 : SOUGHT ANCHOR ROLE | Balks at station's bid to shorten contract : June 12, 2009 : LEWIS LAZARE | Chicago Sun-Times : --------------------------------------------- : Veteran Chicago broadcaster Bob Sirott exited NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5 and his anchor role there Thursday with a classy absence of theatrics and his head held high. It fell to WMAQ station manager Frank Whittaker to inform the staff Thursday morning of Sirott's abrupt exit in a brief memo. : Sirott was expected to be the 10 p.m. news anchor alongside Allison Rosati, but talks hit a snag in station management's last-minute effort to renegotiate his contract and its guaranteed salary in excess of $500,000 a year well into 2011. : Sirott had toughed it out during a period of stressful uncertainty while he waited for WMAQ and parent NBC to decide if they would anoint him the station's new 10 p.m. co-anchor. Even so, Sirott, 59, had been regularly fronting WMAQ's flagship newscast with Rosati, though he hadn't formally been given the job. And as it turns out, Sirott was at his 10 p.m. post again for the last time Wednesday after he and Rosati co-hosted a Jefferson Awards event at an Old Town restaurant. : But in the end, tight budgets trumped Sirott's unwavering professionalism and his high-profile position at WMAQ. "I liked everyone at WMAQ a long time ago, and I still like them on the way out," Sirott said Thursday. : The rub, in Sirott's case, centered on terms in Sirott's current contract that promised him both a 10 p.m. anchor role and a boost in salary commensurate with his new responsibilities. WMAQ finally went to Sirott and asked him to accept a new contract of shorter duration that would have reduced his total guaranteed payout over time, while still giving him the 10 p.m. job. Even though Sirott knew salaries are being cut across the board in the broadcasting biz today, he balked at the revised contract offer. WMAQ then decided to immediately take him off the air. : Not all is lost for Sirott, however. He would not comment on details of his contract, but it is believed the ex-WMAQ anchor will continue to be paid under the terms of his existing contract -- including the pay escalation for the 10 p.m. anchor job -- until it expires in 2011. It was unclear Thursday whether Sirott would continue to be paid under his WMAQ contract if he gets another TV broadcast job before the Channel 5 contract expires. : Still, there was an unmistakable note of disappointment in Sirott's voice Thursday. : "I don't think the folks at WMAQ were happy about having to drag their feet so long about doing what they wanted to do at 10 p.m.," said Sirott, who suspects NBC corporate was pushing WMAQ honcho Larry Wert to keep down costs. : WMAQ executives declined to say much about Sirott's departure Thursday. But Wert, who spearheaded negotiations with Sirott, did tell us, "Bob was a good contributor for us, and I have a high respect for him both as a broadcaster and a person." : Per a WMAQ spokeswoman, the plan now is to go with rotating anchors alongside Rosati for the foreseeable future. Rob Stafford may be a front-runner for a 10 p.m. anchor job, though it's possible the station could opt for a solo anchor. CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2 recently switched to a solo anchor, Rob Johnson, for its 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. weekday newscasts -- labeling the move an experiment to help differentiate its product from the competition. The solo trend has taken hold on the West Coast, where several network stations in San Francisco and Los Angeles have one newscast host, even at 10 p.m. : Sirott's departure from WMAQ actually marks the end of his third go-round with the station and its parent over the course of a long and productive career in Chicago broadcasting. His first "job" in broadcasting was as a page at NBC here in 1966, while he was still in high school. Sirott returned to WMAQ in 1989, as a noon news host and co-host of a morning show with Rosati, before he was axed in 1993. From there, he went to Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32. : Sirott rejoined WMAQ in 2006, first as a weekend anchor before more recently moving to anchor WMAQ's weekday early newscasts. : Sirott told us he would like to pursue another job in television broadcasting, but aside from continuing to host a noon radio show on news/talk WGN-AM (720), he plans to take some time off this summer to decompress. It's also possible WGN could go after Sirott to fill the void between 9 a.m. and noon that was created when the Tribune Co.-owned radio outlet abruptly dumped Kathy O'Malley and Judy Markey last month. There has been talk of Sirott and wife Marianne Murciano co-hosting a WGN radio program.

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