Mary Ann Childers is an American media consultant and former newscaster. From 1980 to 1994, she worked as an anchor at

WLS-TV WLS-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on North State S ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

,Robert Feder. "Anchor With Jay? 'Not in the Cards". ''Chicago Sun-Times''. August 8, 1994. Section 2 Features, 27. where she became the first woman to anchor a top-rated 10pm newscast in Chicago. She then worked as a reporter and anchor at Chicago's

WBBM-TV WBBM-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. Owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, the station maintains studios on West Washington Stre ...

from 1994 to 2008. Childers grew up in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

.Robert Feder. "Donahue to Drury: Hard work drives Childers to the top". ''Chicago Sun-Times'' December 13, 1988. Section 2 Features, 45. During her senior year at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

in 1974, she entered broadcasting as an intern at

WGN-TV WGN-TV (channel 9) is an Independent station (North America), independent television station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister station, sister to the company's sole radio property, talk ra ...

in Chicago. At the time, she was a pre-law student, but she applied for the broadcasting internship to earn the last credit she needed to graduate. After her internship ended, she became an associate producer for ''

The Phil Donahue Show ''The Phil Donahue Show'', also known as ''Donahue'', is an American television talk show hosted by Phil Donahue that ran for 26 years on national television. Its run was preceded by three years of local broadcast on WLWD in Dayton, Ohio, and i ...

'', which was being filmed at the WGN studios. She left the show for news anchor jobs at

WAVE In physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Waves can be periodic, in which case those quantities oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (res ...

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

and

WTHR WTHR (channel 13) is a television station in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside low-power, Class A MeTV affiliate WALV-CD (channel 46). Both stations share studios on North Meridian S ...

Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...

, then moved back to the Chicago market in 1980, joining WLS-TV as a weekend anchor. By 1986, Childers and John Drury were anchoring Chicago's top-rated 10pm news broadcast. In 1987,

Robert Feder Robert Feder (born May 17, 1956) is an American media blogger who was the television and radio columnist for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1980 until 2008, a blogger for Vocalo.org from 2009 until 2010, and a blogger for ''Time Out Chicago'' fro ...

wrote, "With the obvious exception of

Oprah Winfrey Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', br ...

, the most popular television stars in Chicago today are WLS-Channel 7 anchors John Drury and Mary Ann Childers." In 1994, Childers decided not to renew her contract with WLS and joined WBBM-TV. It was announced on March 31, 2008, that she would be leaving WBBM along with 17 others, as part of cost cutting throughout the CBS news division. Her contract was not renewed along with on-air personalities

Diann Burns Diann Burns (born September 29, 1958 in Cleveland, Ohio) is a former television news anchor and a nine-time Emmy Award-winner. She is best known for her years as a prime-time weekday anchor for two different Chicago television stations. She has ...

and Sports Director Mark Malone. She then joined the Res Publica Group, a strategic communications firm. Childers is married to Jay Levine, a fellow journalist who worked with her at WLS and WBBM. They were married in 1989. For a time, the two served as co-anchors on WBBM.Allan Johnson. "Childers-Levine Anchor Team Wedded to Chicago News". Allan Johnson. ''Chicago Tribune''. September 29, 1998. 1.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Childers, Mary Ann Television anchors from Chicago Television anchors from Indianapolis Living people Year of birth missing (living people)