The General Manager for the Nexstar Media Group-owned station serving Albuquerque as a dual CBS/FOX affiliate has passed away, the station announced late Monday.
Bill Anderson is being remembered for the “immense impact on TV broadcasting, the community, everybody he worked with, and his family.”
Anderson has been with KRQE-13 since 1999, serving as the station’s leader for 25 years.
Michelle Donaldson, VP/GM of crosstown rival KOB-4, is a former KRQE News Director who was at the station when it was far behind KOB and KOAT-7 in the local ratings. She told KRQE, “I told my husband after seeing the newsroom. I got the sense you can’t fall off the floor. There wasn’t anything you couldn’t make better and it was like the ultimate challenge… and the really cool thing is that Bill believed it.”
Eventually, KRQE won the news war in the competitive marketplace. Meanwhile, “FOX New Mexico” was added as a DT2 offering, while The CW and MyNetwork TV affiliates were also added to the local operation.
Anderson’s career started at WITI-6 in Milwaukee with a marketing internship, in 1979.
