Former KTVU weeknight anchor Frank Somerville has been replaced.
Photo courtesy of KTVU / Photo courtesy of KTVUMike Mibach, a KTVU anchor who has been with the Bay Area television station for 17 years, is replacing former anchor Frank Somerville as the station’s weeknight anchor, station representatives announced.
Mibach is being promoted and will take up the anchor desk starting May 2 and serve as the station’s weeknight anchor at 5, 6, 10 and 11 p.m. alongside Julie Haener, according to a KTVU news release provided to The Chronicle on Thursday from a spokesperson from Fox Television Stations, which owns KTVU.
- Read more:Former KTVU anchor Frank Somerville speaks about addiction struggles that he says spurred DUI wreck.
“KTVU has been a part of my life for nearly five decades; from growing up in the Bay Area as a viewer, and for the last 17 years as a reporter and anchor,” Mibach said in a statement. “It’s an absolute honor to be trusted to deliver stories in a way that continues the legacy of journalistic excellence for which KTVU has always been known.”
The announcement comes weeks after Somerville, a longtime KTVU news anchor, wascharged by Alameda County prosecutors with driving under the influenceof alcohol and driving with a blood level alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more after crashing his vehicle into another carin a downtown Oakland intersectionin December.
Last fall, Somerville tried to illuminate the contrast in how news organizations cover missing persons cases involving Black and white people in the United States during a 46-second verbal “tag” to the end of an update about Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito’s homicide case. Producers had nixed the tag ahead of a 5 p.m. broadcast and suspended him when a shortened version appeared in a script, sources had told The Chronicle then.
Lauren Hernández (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email:lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.comTwitter:@ByLHernandez
