Bill Ritter, who has fronted the WABC-TV Eyewitness News broadcast in New York City for 27 years, told viewers at the end of Friday night’s program that he is stepping away from the anchor desk after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He will not leave the station entirely, the 11 p.m. anchor said, but will instead take on a reporting role devoted to covering the disease he is now fighting.
Ritter’s announcement was delivered in the format that has defined his on-air voice, a stretch of plainspoken script that walked viewers through the diagnosis, the timeline, and what he wants to do next. “I’m done anchoring at WABC,” he said, “unless someone finds an amazing cure, and really soon.” The line, distinctive for the dryness he is known for, landed during the lead segment after the show’s other anchors had paid tribute. ABC News, the network arm of the station that has employed him since 1998, reported that he is the first prominent local anchor to convert a personal diagnosis into a public reporting beat in the way he has outlined.
Ritter, 74, joined WABC in 1998 after stints at WCBS and CBS News, where his investigative work on the Latin American drug trade brought him into Peabody and Murrow consideration. He has anchored the 11 p.m. New York broadcast continuously since the station’s last full set redesign in the early 2000s, with Sandra Bookman, Liz Cho and Joe Torres rotating across the wider Eyewitness News block. WABC ratings have remained the strongest of any New York local late-news broadcast through that stretch, anchored in part by his presence.
The New York Times, which interviewed Ritter ahead of the on-air announcement, reported that the diagnosis was confirmed earlier this spring after months of cognitive testing. Ritter told the paper he had begun preparing for an exit but rewrote his approach when his doctors and family pushed him to use the platform he has built to talk publicly about what most people are still too afraid to discuss.
The new role is unusual for local news. Few television journalists have stayed on-screen after a major neurological diagnosis, and fewer have been allowed by their network to direct their own assignment toward the condition itself. WABC general manager Debra OConnell, in a statement Friday evening, said the station would build a dedicated unit around Ritter’s coverage, with field producers, a researcher, and an investigative arm. ABC’s national news side is expected to syndicate elements of the reporting across Good Morning America and World News Tonight.
The transition lands at a moment of unusually heavy churn at the top of New York television journalism. Local news has spent 2026 absorbing a wave of senior departures and corporate consolidations across the Hollywood-and-cable-news axis, including the cleared Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger we covered when the DOJ ruling landed. WABC, owned by Disney, has been a comparatively stable studio in that mix, but Ritter’s chair will become the most-watched anchor opening on the East Coast.
For viewers, the departure is the end of a recognizable nightly rhythm. Ritter has been the first face many New Yorkers have seen during weather events, after Yankees and Mets postseason wins, and through the early reporting on 9/11, when he was at the station’s downtown bureau within minutes of the first plane. He spent the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic broadcasting from home, his children’s bedroom serving as a temporary studio. Friday’s sign-off was, by his own framing, a handoff and not a goodbye.
WABC will install a rotating anchor team starting Monday until a permanent replacement is named. Cho, Bookman and Torres are the in-house candidates. Industry observers note that any external hire would land inside a Disney-wide leadership review that has restructured several other ABC-owned stations through 2026. Ritter’s first on-air report under the new beat is expected within two weeks.
