Ernie Anastos, a charismatic New York City television anchor who spent 11 years with WABC’s Eyewitness News and another 15 years with Fox affiliate WNYW, died Wednesday. He was 82 years old.
Anastos started at WABC in 1978 and finished at WNYW in 2019. In between, he had two stints at WCBS-TV and one at WWOR, collecting more than 30 awards and local Emmy nominations along the way.
WABC reported the news of his death, citing people close to his family.
Anastos was born on July 12, 1943, in Nashua, New Hampshire, and graduated from Northeastern University with a degree in sociology. He started as a reporter for radio stations WRKO and WROR in Boston, then got his first television job at WPRI in Providence, Rhode Island.
Anastos joined WABC as a reporter in June 1978 and would serve as Eyewitness News anchor (although he was briefly replaced by Tom Snyder) until May 1989.
He resigned to join WCBS the following month and remained there until 1995, when he chose to focus on his company Anastos Media Group, which owned radio and television stations in upstate New York and New England. He also hosted the Lifetime program Our house.
After his stay at WWOR from 1997 to 2001, he returned to WCBS as lead anchor at 5pm, 6pm and 11pm and was on duty during the September 11 terrorist attacks.
In 2005, he moved to WNYW with a five-year, $10 million contract and worked there until 2019, when he enrolled at Harvard Business School to take courses in leadership and management.
While joking with an on-air meteorologist in 2010, the clean-cut Anastos may have inadvertently used obscene language when he said: “Keep picking that chicken.” He apologized the next day, later saying: “It was certainly an unusual chapter in my life and career.”
Children’s books including Twixt: Teenagers yesterday and today and Ernie and Big News She hosted the nationally syndicated radio program America positively.
In 2017, then-New York Mayor Bill de Blasio declared March 21 as Ernie Anastos Day in the city.
