Chris Stover

But the big story tonight is…

Larry Kane coined a variation of that title phrase on WPVI’s Action News in the 1970s. Afterward, he moved on to KYW-TV in 1993 and retired 10 years later. His replacement?

Well…Marc Howard. He lasted at the 11 p.m. anchor desk for about eight months before moving to 4 p.m. His replacement(s)?

Larry Mendte and Alycia Lane.

It seemed like a beautiful partnership. Mendte, stolen from NBC10, and Lane, wanting cooler temps than Florida, began to liven up a recently rebranded station that had been sinking in the ratings.

I was one of those who “Made the Switch” with Mendte and meteorologist Kathy Orr. And I haven’t gone back since. CBS3 hasn’t given me reason to.

Last night’s 6 p.m. announcement of Mendte’s dismissal came before any other press. No Web site, not even CBS3’s, had the news up there. As soon as she uttered those words – “effective immediately” – it was the lead news story on 6abc.com and nbc10.com.

(On a side note, neither ABC nor NBC aired a copy story about Mendte’s firing at 11 p.m. as the story remained on their sites. Funny, since ABC wasn’t shy to announce the introduction of a federal investigation of Mendte on the air June 1.)

There is a long tradition of local news anchors in Philadelphia. Philadelphians are simply not only obsessed with the news, but also those who deliver it. It’s up to the newspeople themselves to handle it.

6ABC has a tradition of longevity. Turnaround at the station, at least in terms of on-air talent, is fairly low. Jim Gardner, Gary Papa, Cecily Tynan, Dave Roberts, Vernon Odom – these are tenured people you automatically associate with the station because they’ve been there so long. But you never see Michael Klein or Dan Gross writing about them in the way they have with Mendte and Lane.

I first learned about Lane’s legal issues from the blog of The Temple News, of all places. Since learning of it, I had been checking the Web site multiple times a day – accounting for a large percentage of the site’s hits, I’m sure – just to see if there were further developments. I didn’t care too much about the outcome, but I was satisfied on Jan. 1.

So, since May 29, I’ve been doing the same. I remember watching the news on a Friday and seeing Susan Barnett anchoring solo. “Where’s Larry?” I thought. 6ABC told me the next night.

Thus, here we are. Another anchor down, another hole to fill, another story to feed the gossipers and news junkies for months to come, undoubtedly.

As I mentioned in a previous post, CBS3 has had a lot of turnover in the last year. It’s like the summer interns of 2007 left a curse behind so we would have jobs when we’re ready. I wasn’t planning on having the curse act so quickly.

Marge Pala, Marc Howard, Alycia Lane, Dick Standish, Tom Lamaine, Larry Mendte. They’ve all disappeared from CBS3 airwaves, and soon-to-be-retired Robin Macintosh will be joining this summer.

They’ve added Chris May, Nicole Brewer (though she’s not on-air), Elizabeth Hur and Ben Simmoneau. But that doesn’t exactly make up for what was lost.

What CBS3 needs to do is become the new Philadelphia transition. Undoubtedly, 6ABC will be seeing a lot of turnover soon since many reporters are reaching retirement. CBS3 should groom their current group of star reporters and encourage them to stick around (and not become news themselves). Maybe they can one day reach synonymy with Philadelphia as 6ABC has done for the past x-decades.

As expected, the number of hits to my blog have skyrocketed after writing about Mendte’s outcome. I blogged by 6:18 p.m. last night, just minutes after hearing the news. I’d like to think I broke it first after CBS3.

And those numbers will continue to climb. People still search for info on Mendte and Lane. They’re still my most popular posts.

This proves that Philadelphians care about tradition. And at the moment, we’re waiting for some stability so a new tradition can form.