ABC 7 promotes Elgas, Baichwal to prime news slots

Market leader fills spots vacated by retiring Alan Krashesky

Posted at 12:41 a.m.

Top-rated ABC 7 (WLS-TV) announced Thursday the promotion of veteran anchors Rob Elgas and Ravi Baichwal to prime weekday slots, filling the void left by the retirement of Alan Krashesky last November. 

Rob Elgas will begin anchoring the 10 p.m. newscast and the 7 p.m. livestream with Cheryl Burton while Ravi Baichwal is being promoted from weekends to anchor weekday newscasts at 5 with Burton and 6 with Judy Hsu, who’ll continue to anchor at 4 p.m. with Elgas. The moves are effective March 6. 

The news was first reported by Crain’s Chicago Business Thursday afternoon. 

“Rob Elgas and Ravi Baichwal are journalists viewers know, like and trust,” said Jennifer Graves, vice president of news at ABC 7. “They represent decades of solid anchoring and reporting experience in Chicago, which we know will serve our viewers well.”

The moves comes amid a hiring freeze at parent The Walt Disney Co., who owns ABC and eight of its stations, including WLS-TV. Just this week, another ABC 7 personality departed as meteorologist Phil Schwarz announced his retirement. 

Despite some recent serious missteps and an overall decline in linear TV viewing (and except mornings, where Nexstar’s WGN-TV has a lead in key demos), ABC 7 has maintained its news dominance in households and in key 25-54 news viewer demos dating back to the mid-1980s when they overtook CBS-owned WBBM-TV in the ratings. ABC’s owned stations are usually the most-watched news stations in their markets, including WABC New York, KABC Los Angeles, and WPVI Philadelphia.