It's official: WKRC-TV announced the hiring of former ESPN anchor Gary Miller at 7 p.m. Friday. He will start in mid-August, says Jon Lawhead, Sinclair group manager.
"Cincinnati is a big sports town. With our multi-station, multi-platform commitment to everything from high school sports, Reds, Bengals and FC Cincinnati, we think our viewers and users will agree that Gary's experience is a great addition to the team," Lawhead said in the station announcement.
Original post 8:45 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 3:
Former ESPN anchor Gary Miller says he's coming to Cincinnati, and I'm told that means he's the new sports anchor at WKRC-TV (Channel 12).
No comment yet from station managers, but Channel 12 has the only sports vacancy in town. Sports anchor Brad Steinke left after May sweeps.
"Followers and friends, look for a new (Twitter account) in Cincy next mnth," Miller wrote from his @garymillerkcal Twitter account July 26.
Miller left KCAL-TV and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles in January in a downsizing, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.
Miller is best known for his ESPN work from 1990 to 2004. He anchored on "SportsCenter," and hosted "Baseball Tonight" and the "Up Close" interview show canceled in 2001. He also did play-by-play for Major League Baseball, the College World Series and the Little League World Series. And he was a dugout reporter on "Monday Night Baseball."
Before ESPN, Miller was a sports reporter for CNN and Headline News from 1982 to 1990. (Mason High School grad Dan Patrick also was hired at ESPN from CNN.)
Miller, from the Chicago suburb of Naperville, earned a bachelor's degree in communications at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he was sports director at the campus TV and radio stations. Before CNN, he was sports director at WSAV-TV in Savannah, Ga.
Steinke spent two years at Channel 12. He started on Opening Day 2015, filling the vacancy created when Channel 12 managers moved sports director Brad Johansen back to news in fall of 2014.
