Darren Richards leaves WTSP

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Our friends at FLNewsCenter.com brought us the story from the St. Pete Times: Darren Richards, news director at WTSP-TV in St. Pete, is leaving to pursue other interests.

 

(Text care of sptimes.com )

 

Staffers at St. Petersburg CBS affiliate WTSP-Ch. 10 -- also known as 10 Connects -- learned today that news director Darren Richards will be leaving the station at the end of October for a job as vice president at Tucker/Hall communications, a Tampa public relations firm.

 

Richards, 42, has worked at WTSP for five years and for station owner Gannett Co. for 19 years.

 

When an executive leaves a TV station suddenly, cynics immediately expect one of two things: the person was forced out, or they left knowing the end was coming. But Richards insisted his leaving wasn't expressing any doubts about the future of local TV journalism or his own future at Gannett.

 

"This is just about everything adding up and being right for me," said Richards. "It's a big move -- the end of a 23-year TV career. But I'm ready fora new challenge."

 

Over the past year, WTSP has let go of several longtime faces, including weather forecaster Randy Rauch and anchor Marty Matthews, while hiring new morning anchor Keith Jones and morning traffic reporter Danielle Saar. Gannett has forced its employees to take unpaid days off twice this year, and all the new resources for WTSP's morning show have not yet brought big ratings gains.

 

Station general manager Ken Tonning, who originally hired Richards into the Gannett company 19 years ago, could not say who would replace Richards, noting that he has agreed to stay through most of the start of this fall's new network TV season.