and Willis on at 6:00 p.m., while giving the 11:00 p.m. slot to weekend anchor/reporter Kate Sullivan and Dave Wright, an incoming newsman hired away from ATV in the Canadian Maritimes. However, when Rosser had a meeting with Willis for what was supposed to be her contract renewal, he was told by her that instead, she would be leaving to become a professor of journalism at Northeastern University. Willis and Rosser publicly announced her resignation in July, and Willis assured the staff that her decision to leave WNEV was isolated from her soon-to-be decreased air time. Ellis, on the other hand, was unhappy about his reduction, feeling that he was no longer being considered the station's principal anchor. Yanoff and Rosser attempted to come to agreeable terms with Ellis, with two proposed plans—to either pair him with Kate Sullivan or Dave Wright, or to find him another replacement female anchor. It was purported that WNEV was even in discussions with by-then-former NBC anchor Linda Ellerbee for her to become Ellis' co-anchor. The anchor replacement and Wright-Ellis pairing ideas were ultimately nixed (by the 1980s, the idea of two men anchoring together was passe), with Sullivan and Wright taking over both the 6:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. newscasts in September. Ellis was demoted to reporter, a move that ultimately led to his exit from the station altogether in early December 1986. In August 1987, numerous changes occurred when R.D. Sahl, who had been WNEV's noon anchor on weekdays, joined Kate Sullivan as her new partner on weeknights (Sahl had filled in for Wright on numerous occasions during 1986 and 1987, and heavily in the summer of 1987 when Wright was recovering from a heart attack). At the same time, WNEV became the first Boston station to launch a 5:00 p.m. newscast, which was anchored by Dave Wright and Diana Williams. The Live at Five hour of the news was a cross between the informality of WBZ's competing Live on 4 and WNEV's regular newscasts, without the lifestyle and specialty features seen on Live on 4. However, there was a unique twist. Wright, who had created the Live at Five format at ATV (where he had hosted it from 1982 to 1986), brought the concept to WNEV, which had him and Williams walking around a special newsroom set sans an anchor desk as they presented stories. Featured reporters were seated at assignment