Longtime ABC New York television host Bill Ritter is stepping away from the anchor desk.
Ritter previously announced his retirement on June 12, noting that this broadcast would be the last time he anchored the news on New York’s WABC TV. Ritter, 76, joined the station in 1998 and has anchored the 6 p.m. newscast since 2001. The reason for his retirement is due to his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.
“After a battery of tests, my doctors have told me I have Alzheimer’s disease. It’s early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, and they say the treatments I’m receiving are keeping it at bay. For now,” Ritter told WABC viewers late last week.
He admitted that he has been forgetting more and more names and places over the past two years.
Ritter later added, “…there is no guarantee, because there is no cure yet for Alzheimer’s. So unless someone finds a great cure, and soon, tonight will be the last newscast I present.”
When Ritter first noticed Alzheimer’s symptoms, he stopped doing the 5 and 11 p.m. broadcasts and reduced his workload to just the 6 p.m. news. Despite the shortened schedule, his symptoms did not improve.
He told it Good morning America that when he heard of his diagnosis, his first thought was of his father, who died of Alzheimer’s disease in 1998. “… It was scary. Because it was like, ‘Wait a minute, I should be doing this. What’s going on here?’
“I quickly moved to a man/dad place. Because Alzheimer’s affects the family the most. As a father and husband, I said, ‘I have to deal with this. This is my family. And that’s what I’m really worried about.'”
Before his tenure at WABC, Ritter worked in local television throughout California as well as for the Los Angeles Times.
Despite his retirement and diagnosis, Ritter won’t be leaving ABC All the way New York. He will contribute to the channel by focusing on Alzheimer’s disease in a special role. Ritter said the station’s website that its coverage of the disease will report on “the rising tide of Alzheimer’s disease and other diseases like it, including how it affects patients and their families, how the price of treatment and the price of care for patients is simply unaffordable and how this country could change that.”
Ritter also said he plans to spend more time with his family.
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