Posted by chicagomedia.org on July 31, 2009 at 11:21:26:
WMAQ-Ch. 5 picks Rob Stafford to be Allison Rosati's co-anchor
The day in 2006 when newsman Rob Stafford learned he would be among 17 "Dateline NBC" staffers laid off from what had been a dream job was a hard lesson in how quickly fates and fortunes can change in TV news.
"Nobody is more aware of that than I am because I've lived it, and so has my family," Stafford said. "I've learned you take opportunities, you work hard and that's all you can do. You can only control what you do. You can't control what this business does. ... You look at News Blues (a popular subscription Web site chronicling industry developments) every day and you could freak yourself out."
Friday's news looks considerably rosier for Stafford, who wound up as an occasional contributor to "Dateline" while anchoring weekends for NBC-owned WMAQ-Ch. 5.
Channel 5 plans to formally name him Allison Rosati's co-anchor on the station's marquee 10 p.m. weekday newscast, as well as its 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. broadcasts, effective Aug. 10.
Stafford succeeds Warner Saunders in the position long earmarked for Bob Sirott. The plum job unexpectedly opened up when Sirott left WMAQ last month rather than agree to amended terms of his multiyear contract, which called for him to not only get the 10 p.m. job after Saunders' retirement but a raise with it. So Channel 5 is paying Sirott not to anchor while installing Stafford in his place.
Meanwhile, Stafford's onetime weekend co-anchor, Anna Davlantes, ended her nine-year run at the station Thursday. She declined a contract renewal in order to seek other opportunities. Frank Whittaker, Channel 5's station manager and vice president for news, sent staff a spare, two-sentence note announcing her immediate departure.
"Everybody's leaving on good terms," said Steve Mandell, Davlantes' agent. "It's not a question of money. The money was fine. ... She had a good relationship with NBC and Larry [Wert, NBC Local Media's president for the Central and Western regions] and Frank. It's that she wants to seek out some other things she can do with her career."
On Roe Conn's WLS-AM 890 program, Davlantes spoke of "some other things out there" she intended to pursue. At the end of the day, you either decide to leave at some point or you die at a station. Right?" she said. "I'm deciding to leave. That's what it is."
For many others, however, the decision is not voluntary. Sources said that Fox-owned WFLD-Ch. 32, which last week cut seven off-air positions, was preparing to notify 11 union technicians and a union courier on Friday that it will be eliminating their jobs in another cost-cutting move. WFLD's spokeswoman couldn't be reached for comment.
With his own contract set to expire in the fall, Stafford wasn't sure how things would play out at WMAQ when the station's attempts to renegotiate with Sirott were breaking down. But he said he wasn't all that worried, either, as agent Peter Goldberg of N.S. Bienstock Inc. worked on a new deal.
"I'm a fairly quiet guy," Stafford said. "You do what you do because you like to do it, and you like the people you work with. That's how I am."
Before "Dateline," Stafford was a consumer reporter and substitute anchor at Chicago's CBS-owned WBBM-Ch. 2, having anchored and reported previously in Orlando, Green Bay, Wis., and Duluth, Minn.
The longer reports afforded by a network newsmagazine provided a sense of satisfaction; fronting a trio of nightly newscasts another.
"They're two different jobs," Stafford said. "The job I had before, at `Dateline,' was like juggling 10 term papers. This job is like three really intense pop quizzes every day, so there is an adrenaline rush that is very different doing this than doing the other. On a personal level, I find that challenging and rewarding."
Uncertainties being what they are in TV these days, however, that can be said of simply holding down a job.