Nothing personal but....
I remember when Kent Dana was a weekend anchor on Channel 10 in the 1970s. He was lured over to Channel 12, but did not immediately produce high ratings for them.
In fact, Channel 12 can directly trace their ratings surge to the mid-1990s network switches that affected just about every station except for Channel 12. Dana had been with 12 for more than a decade by that point, so viewers weren't watching 12 just because of him.
So when KPHO hired Kent away from 12 a few years ago and paid him a huge salary to make the switch, it was with the assumption that Dana would bring viewers with him; something he had never proven able to do.
The most recent ratings would indicate that virtually nobody cares who's anchoring at KPHO.
I can't claim to understand why people choose one station over another (except that channel 3 is hopeless fluff right now and not worth watching), but I bet if you plugged Mark Curtis into Channel 5 right now, their ratings wouldn't budge; and neither would 12's for that matter.
People just aren't as into the minor celebrity factor of local anchors anymore. But apparently Phoenicians have gotten used to not watching Channel 5 news, and some things never change. It's too bad, because they actually do a pretty good job.
I remember when Kent Dana was a weekend anchor on Channel 10 in the 1970s. He was lured over to Channel 12, but did not immediately produce high ratings for them.
In fact, Channel 12 can directly trace their ratings surge to the mid-1990s network switches that affected just about every station except for Channel 12. Dana had been with 12 for more than a decade by that point, so viewers weren't watching 12 just because of him.
So when KPHO hired Kent away from 12 a few years ago and paid him a huge salary to make the switch, it was with the assumption that Dana would bring viewers with him; something he had never proven able to do.
The most recent ratings would indicate that virtually nobody cares who's anchoring at KPHO.
I can't claim to understand why people choose one station over another (except that channel 3 is hopeless fluff right now and not worth watching), but I bet if you plugged Mark Curtis into Channel 5 right now, their ratings wouldn't budge; and neither would 12's for that matter.
People just aren't as into the minor celebrity factor of local anchors anymore. But apparently Phoenicians have gotten used to not watching Channel 5 news, and some things never change. It's too bad, because they actually do a pretty good job.
