WIVB-TV (Channel 4) morning co-anchor and noon anchor Melanie Orlins announced at the end of this morning’s “Wake Up!” that she is leaving after five years at the station.
Her last day is June 3. She didn’t say where she is headed.
In a two-minute address to the audience in front of co-anchor Kelsey Anderson and meteorologist Mike Cejka, Orlins repeatedly praised the area's people and restaurants and addressed the Buffalo Bills impact on the area.
“In our careers we jump around a lot, I’ve jumped around a lot, this is hands down the hardest goodbye I will ever have to do, it really is,” said Orlins.
“She was a pleasure to work with and we’re really going to miss her,” said Channel 4 General Manager Brien Kennedy.
He is unaware of where she is headed.
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“I’m sure it is a real good opportunity for her,” said Kennedy.
Orlins arrived in Buffalo almost five years ago from a Fox affiliate in Harrisburg, Pa., where she anchored the morning news.
Before that she was an anchor-reporter at a station in Grand Forks, N.D.
She was named Channel 4 co-anchor almost a year after Teresa Weakley left “Wake Up!” in September of 2016 to work at a station in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Weakley was temporarily replaced by Brittni Smallwood before Orlins took over. The delay in naming a full-time co-anchor was partly the result of a change in Channel 4 ownership and the hiring of a new vice president and general manager at the time, Dominic Mancuso.
Nexstar, the owner of WIVB, also has named the station's next general manager.
The company announced that Joe Abouzeid, most recently the GM at Nexstar's station in Dayton, will replace Kennedy, who has agreed to stay on for a few extra weeks. Abouzeid previously was the news director at a Providence station.
