Paul Moyer

Paul Moyer (born August 1, 1941) is an American journalist. He co-anchored the 5 PM and 11 PM weekday editions of KNBC-TV's Channel 4 News with Colleen Williams. Moyer has worked primarily in the two major television markets—New York and Los Angeles—in addition to briefly working on network newscasts. Moyer was Los Angeles' longest-running news anchor following the death of KTLA anchor Hal Fishman on August 7, 2007. He is married and has four children, Elise, Paul, Dylan and Kyle.

On April 1, 2009, KNBC's Colleen Williams announced, during the evening newscast, that Moyer had decided to retire after 25 years at the station.^[1] Moyer's salary was estimated at more than $3 million a year at his time of retirement.

Early career

Moyer was born in Los Angeles, California. He attended Torrance High School and the University of Arizona (class of 1964), and tried out for the Pittsburgh Pirates, before beginning a broadcasting career. He served positions at KTIV in Sioux City, Iowa, WMBD-TV and WMBD radio in Peoria, Illinois, KTVI in St. Louis, KDKA-TV and KDKA radio in Pittsburgh, and then WCBS-TV in New York City^[2] before returning to Los Angeles and joining KNBC in March 1972 as reporter and weekend anchor. The KNBC Newservice, as it was known, then featured Jess Marlow, Tom Snyder, and Tom Brokaw as the main nightly anchors and was the first serious competition in the local news ratings against KNXT's The Big News with Jerry Dunphy. Moyer soon moved to the 11 p.m. newscast in July 1973 and to the 6 p.m. newscast in December 1974 with the respective departures of Brokaw and Snyder (the latter instance followed the addition of John Schubeck to the late news).

Moyer would anchor at KNBC and host its Sunday program, in both cases working alongside longtime KNBC anchorwoman Kelly Lange. However, after the station relieved him of his anchor duties, he moved over to rival KABC-TV in 1979 initially as a "special correspondent" for Eyewitness News. Soon, however, when the weekday operation expanded to three hours in the early evening in the fall of 1980, Moyer was named co-anchor of the 5 p.m. hour with Ann Martin. He soon replaced Dunphy (who had moved to KABC in 1975) on the 11 p.m. news after the latter was shot during a robbery attempt near the studio in 1983; the appointment would become permanent a year later.

Career

Moyer was a visible face on the ABC network in the mid-1980s, appearing as a correspondent on Eye on Hollywood and substituting on World News This Morning and Good Morning America. But in 1992, after a highly publicized bidding war, Moyer returned to KNBC in July 1992 to co-anchor with longtime San Francisco anchorwoman-journalist Wendy Tokuda. However, when ratings failed to surpass KABC's, Moyer was once again paired with Lange; both received a seven-figure salary. According to a June 2007 article in Los Angeles Magazine, Moyer's salary was rumored to be closer to $8 million.

Moyer appeared as himself on the TV show The West Wing while doing an election-night stint for MSNBC. His nephew, Micah Ohlman, had anchored the weekend newscasts at rival KABC and is now anchoring at KTLA. He was at one time designated the honorary mayor of West Los Angeles.

Moyer is known as an avid car collector, particularly interested in Ferrari cars, Ford GTs, and other sports cars. He won the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race in 1988.

On April 30, 1992, he toured Los Angeles in a helicopter to observe damage from the Los Angeles riots.

In April 2009, Moyer announced that he would be retiring from KNBC where he had been a fixture for over 30 years.

Cultural references

The morning duo Kevin and Bean on KROQ-FM made fun of Moyer on a regular basis for his presentation style and alleged behind-the-scenes temper. An audio tape from the early 1990s^[3] features Moyer verbally berating Ann Martin when they anchored together just seconds before the newscast began. The audio tape references Moyer bad-mouthing rival anchor Harold Greene while accusing Martin of drinking before the newscast. Moyer suggests the two should take up their issues with Roger Bell, KABC-TV's News Director.^[4]

In May 2006, Moyer led an investigation on the rapidly increasing Chemtrail/Weather modification problem in Southern California. His four-minute report Toxic Sky, produced for KNBC in Los Angeles, went viral on the Internet almost as soon as it was posted to their official website NBC4.TV (now nbclosangeles.com).

Filmography

• Heat (1995) – self
• Boomtown (2002) – self
• One Six Right (2005) – self

References

External links

• Paul Moyer at the Internet Movie Database