Trading Shifts and Chairs at Two Local Stations

January 2018 will be an active period of change for WGRZ-TV and WKBW-TV as anchors and meteorologists are prepared to exchange shifts.

In a press release from General Manager Jim Toellner, Adam Benigni will return to his previous post as WGRZ-TV’s Sports Director. In October 2017, it was announced that Benigni would replace “Daybreak” co-anchor John Beard and anchor the morning show alongside Melissa Holmes after anchoring news during Scott Levin’s time away from the station in the automotive/financial industry. Benigni’s return to the role of Sports Director brings the size of the team back to 4 up until Jonah Javad’s upcoming departure to WFAA-TV in Dallas in mid-February.

Pete Gallivan will be the new co-anchor of “Daybreak” and begin his role on the week of January 15. Gallivan had been the co-anchor of the morning show from 1999 to 2009 before being replaced by John Beard. Gallivan had been regularly reporting for “Daybreak”, uncovering the Unknown Stories of Western New York, and was hired back in 2013 as a sports reporter after he left the station and returned shortly thereafter.

Across town, the weather department at WKBW-TV will be flipping the shifts of three meteorologists to opposite ends of the day during the month of January.

Meteorologist Andy Parker is moving to the primetime shifts of delivering forecasts at 5, 6, and 11 p.m. Parker has been with the morning program ever since its launch in August 2014. Meteorologist and traffic reporter Autumn Lewandowski retains the 12 p.m. forecasting duties and add on forecasts at 5:30 and 7 p.m. during The Now Buffalo with Hannah Buehler.

Chief Meteorologist Aaron Mentkowski will move to the morning show from 4:30 to 7 a.m. Mentkowski has been the station’s morning meteorologist on a couple different occasions, most recently with former WKBW-TV anchor Bridget Blythe.