He spent 11 years as an “Eyewitness News” anchor, and later helmed local newscasts viewed by millions across the New York Tri-State Area for the CBS and FOX-owned stations serving the market. He was also heard on the radio, at WABC-AM, and that stint birthed a plan to syndicated a TV version of the program through Gray Media. Furthermore, he once owned four radio stations in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy market.
Now, many across the region are pausing to remember Ernie Anastos, who has died at the age of 82. According to WCBS-TV, Anastos died of pneumonia on Thursday morning (3/12) at Northern Westchester Hospital; Anastos’ wife, Kelly, shared the news with the station.
Anastos became a household name for legions of viewers, starting in 1978 at WABC-7 after a two-year stint at WPRI-TV in Providence, R.I. That job, his first behind the TV anchor desk, came in 1976 following roles in radio news at both WRKO-AM and WROR-FM in Boston.
At WABC-7 in New York, Anastos would host the 5pm and 11pm newscasts before leaving in May 1989. One month later, he resurfaced at WCBS-2 for the first of two stints, the second starting in 2001 and ending in 2005. In between, Anastos became a broadcast media licensee as a lead partner in Anastos Media Group. His stations included WABY-AM, WUAM-AM and WVKZ-FM in the Capital District, which were sold in September 2012 to Joe Reilly for $1.2 million, concluding his time as a radio station owner.
With the end of Anastos’ second run at WCBS-2, he would appear on WWOR-9 as the host of its newscasts. In 2005, he would jump to WNYW “FOX 5,” thanks to a five-year contract that paired him with Rosanna Scotto.
Anastos would spent the next 14 years at FOX 5, making his tenure there his longest in New York media. By 2022, with on-air work at WABC-AM, a weekly program named “Positively America With Ernie Anastos” was slated for syndication by Gray for TV stations across the U.S. The program was “supported by” Regeneron, a company authorized to provide monoclonal antibodies as treatment for COVID-19, and its executive producer was slated to be former longtime radio morning show host Todd Pettengill.
