WMAQ-Channel 5<\/a> before he joined ABC 7 in 1998.<\/p>\nHis departure from NBC 5 in May 1997 made national headlines when he and anchor partner Carol Marin quit their jobs to protest the hiring of talk show host Jerry Springer as a commentator on the station\u2019s 10 p.m. newscast. With three years left on a multimillion-dollar contract, Magers walked away on principle, demonstrating a level of integrity seldom seen in the news business.<\/p>\n
For the past 18 years at ABC 7 he has maintained the station\u2019s No. 1 ratings despite intense competition lately from NBC 5, particularly for viewers in the prized 25-to-54 demographic.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not known who would replace Magers alongside Cheryl Burton at 5 p.m. and Kathy Brock at 10 p.m. The most obvious inside candidate is Alan Krashesky, a 34-year veteran of ABC 7, while other contenders could include Ravi Baichwal, Terrell Brown or Rob Elgas.<\/p>\n
Also reported to be cutting back or retiring sometime in the coming months is chief meteorologist Jerry Taft, 72, now in his 32nd year at ABC 7 (and his 39th in the market). Cheryl Scott already has been designated internally as Taft\u2019s successor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ron Magers, anchorman of Chicago\u2019s top-rated newscasts at 5 and 10 p.m. and one of the city\u2019s most respected newsmen for more than three decades, is planning to retire this year, sources said. Insiders at ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7 said Magers, 71, could step down as soon as this summer, if all goes as planned. The... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10357"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10364,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10357\/revisions\/10364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}