Ernie Anastos, longtime New York TV news anchor, dies at 82

Ernie Anastos, the veteran anchor who made career stops at most of New York City's major TV stations — and became one of New York's most popular TV news figures in the process — has died. WABC/7, where he worked from 1978 until 1989, reported late Thursday on its website that "news of his passing was confirmed to Eyewitness News by those close to his family." No cause of death was given. He was 82.

In a tribute on the station's 6 p.m. broadcast — which Anastos once anchored — Ch. 7's chief anchor, Bill Ritter, said that "he was something unique," and "no matter your politics, Ernie was trusted."

Either New York TV news' most popular anchor or most archetypal one, Anastos periodically made a case for both over a career that began in 1978 at Ch. 7 and ended 42 years later in 2020, when he retired from WNYW/5.

As a junior reporter and fill-in anchor at Ch. 7, he entered what was probably the most stacked TV newsroom in the city — Roger Grimsby, Bill Beutel, Joan Lunden, Rose Ann Scamardella were all or soon-to-be — legends — and within a year was sitting next to Scamardella on the 11. This was local news' Happy Talk era, and while Grimsby and Scamardella were ill-disposed to that style of delivery, it came effortlessly to Anastos.

"Happy" would be the word that first came to mind with him over the years, closely followed by "optimistic." And no one on local news embraced those qualities quite like Anastos. By the early '80s, Ch. 7 was the local leader.

In a 2004 interview with Newsday, he attributed his famously sunny outlook to his grandfather, Anastasios Anastasiou, one of the first Greek Orthodox priests ordained in America.

"I was named after my grandfather," he said. "He was gentle, he was strong and had a kind heart [and] was a very special person in my life. He had a terrific line: I wish to die young but as late in life as possible. It's the youthful spirit. I'm still passionate about life, and I think the lesson he was leaving me there was that everything doesn't have to end tragically. My grandfather left me with that spirit, and that gave me a foundation for living in this world."

Anastos anchored for four stations — WABC/7 (1978-89), WCBS/2 (1989-1997; 2001-2005), WWOR/9 (1997-2000) and WNYW/5 (2005-19) — largely unprecedented in a business (and city) where the top anchor typically came to symbolize a station's personality, or its news style. Nevertheless, there was a sense among some of the managers running New York TV news that Anastos was interchangeable — so popular, and so recognizable, that he could be effortlessly form-fitted to any station, or any style.

To an extent that was true, and to an extent not. Anastos's greatest success was at Ch. 7, but he struggled at an already ratings-challenged WCBS over two stints and essentially disappeared during the brief run at Ch. 9. During his long tenure at Ch. 5, where he went in 2005 after signing a $10 million/5-year deal to become co-anchor with that station's resident star, Rosanna Scotto, the Ch. 7 glory years were far in the past. Nevertheless, his Ch. 5 run lasted 15 years.

Over those four decades, Anastos won dozens of Emmys, while in 2011, the New York Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences awarded him its highest honor, the Governors Award, in 2011.

Lori Stokes — whose long career in New York spanned two stations, Ch. 7 and Ch. 5 — said in a phone interview Thursday "that it wasn't until Fox that I had the opportunity to have longer conversations with him, and get to know him as the kind, gentle soul he was. There are some people we lose and it hits you in a certain way, but when I heard, I literally had to sit down and look up and thank him for just being who he was. He was just a good man."

N.J. Burkett, the veteran Ch. 7 reporter said in a text, "Ernie was one of the best loved and most recognizable figures in New York television. He loved the city and the city loved him back [and] when I joined 'Eyewitness News' in 1989, he was among the first to welcome me and I feel like I belonged. If you close your eyes and think about Ernie, you can see his smile. I don't think I ever saw him without it. He was relentlessly upbeat."

Burkett added, "The Greek community really loved him, I don't think there's a Greek restaurant in New York City where there isn't a smiling, autographed headshot of Ernie."

Asked about that ubiquitous picture, Anastos once told Newsday, "most of the diners in New York are run or owned by Greeks, and when I came to New York in 1978, they were very proud because no one on the air was Greek-American. So they embraced me. I [also] hosted events for the Diners Association, and it has an annual awards dinner, and [members] asked me to send pictures. You're talking a lot of years here, and the pictures tell a chronological story. You'll see one picture in one diner, and I have an Afro out there [extending his arms], and as we progress, you'll see the hair get a little shorter."

Anastos was born on July 12, 1943, in Nashua, New Hampshire. He got into radio at age 15 (his on-air name was Ernie Andrews) and after college (Northeastern) worked at a couple of Boston radio stations before landing at Providence station WPRI in 1976.

After leaving Ch. 5, he enrolled in Harvard Business School's executive leadership and management program, then joined WABC radio in early 2023, with a talk show, "Positively Ernie." At the time, he said (in a statement), "We always hear the bad and not often the good that comes out of the news. My passion has always been to inform, educate and inspire. I'm looking forward to sharing an uplifting take on the news."