News anchor Ellen Leyva is leaving KABC-TV Channel 7 after nearly 30 years, marking the latest departure of a prominent local newscaster.
Leyva made the announcement Monday during the Walt Disney Co. station’s afternoon program. She plans to remain on the air, alongside longtime co-anchor David Ono, for a few more months during a transition, station officials said.
“After much contemplation and introspection, I know I’m ready to make a move on and focus on my next great adventure in life,” Leyva told viewers, adding that the decision was “something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.”
In an email to the staff, KABC General Manager Wendy Granato called Leyva’s retirement “bittersweet news.”
The Glendale-based station has long boasted one of the most stable on-air teams in Los Angeles. Its anchors remain popular with viewers even as news consumption patterns change and stations become less lucrative divisions for the major networks. Last spring, a Pew Research Center report highlighted the industrywide shift, noting that a growing number of Americans get much of their local news online.
Still, an overwhelming majority of respondents said local news coverage is important to their community, according to the Pew study.
And local broadcasters demonstrated their mettle — and importance — by providing marathon coverage of last month’s Altadena and Pacific Palisades wildfires and the devastating aftermath as thousands grieved the loss of loved ones, homes, churches, schools and businesses.
Leyva is the latest local news anchor to exit.
Popular KNBC-TV Channel 4 meteorologist Fritz Coleman retired in 2020. Two years later, a cadre of prominent KNBC journalists — Beverly White, Chuck Henry, Kim Baldonado and Angie Crouch — retired from the station. Also in 2022, longtime favorite Lynette Romero switched to KNBC after a high-profile departure from KTLA-TV Channel 5.
And last year, two deaths stunned the local broadcast community: KTLA’s stalwart entertainment anchor Sam Rubin, who died in May; and KCAL-TV Channel 9 co-anchor Chauncy Glover, who died unexpectedly in November at the age of 39.
Leyva, who grew up in Arizona, joined KABC in 1995 as a health reporter and later joined the anchor desk.
Over the years, she has co-hosted Oscars red carpet arrivals, flown with the Blue Angels and provided a steady on-air presence. She also served as KABC’s team leader for AIDS Walk Los Angeles and advocated for mental health services for underserved communities.
“To say that she has been an invaluable and truly treasured member of our Eyewitness News team is an understatement,” Granato said in her email.
The station did not specify Leyva’s departure date.
“This station, everyone who works here and all of you are truly my home away from home,” Leyva told viewers. “I could not have asked for a more rewarding career with the best people in the best city in the world.”
