Frank Somerville says he wasn’t re-signed, won’t return to KTVU

Longtime news anchor Frank Somerville will not return to KTVU after more than three decades with the TV station, the Bay Area News Group recently reported.

Somerville told the media outlet that his contract expired on Friday and KTVU opted not to re-sign him. He had been suspended from the station since September after a dispute over coverage of the Gabby Petito case.

“I’ve given my heart and soul to Channel 2,” Somerville said. “I would give anything to work there. For whatever reason, they decided not to re-sign me.”

He had been with the station for 31 years.

Somerville said that his late December arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence “had nothing to do” with KTVU’s decision. The arrest followed a collision caught on video in which Somerville crashed his Porsche into another car in downtown Oakland.

Somerville is due to appear in court Feb. 28, and Oakland police will turn the case over to Alameda County prosecutors once they receive blood test results.

Somerville told the Bay Area News Group that the station informed him he would not be returning “long before” his arrest.

Somerville’s suspension in September stemmed from a dispute with KTVU managers over coverage of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old traveler whose missing persons case received widespread attention. Petito was found dead in September in Wyoming. The FBI says Petito’s boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, admitted to killing her in a notebook discovered near his body in a Florida swamp in October. Laundrie’s death was ruled a suicide.

Somerville wanted to add a tagline to the story that spotlighted “missing white woman syndrome,” a term used to describe the disparity between media coverage of missing white women and missing people of color.

Editors decided against adding what they felt was opinion to a straightforward news story, the Mercury News reported, and that section was removed from the story. Somerville then attempted to bring back the tagline, telling a producer unfamiliar with the disagreement that it had been approved.

The station indefinitely suspended Somerville after the incident, marking the second suspension in one year. Somerville was off the air for most of the summer after he slurred his words on a live newscast in late May.

Somerville did not share what his future plans are and whether he intends to continue his career as a broadcast journalist.

“Mornings On 2” anchor Mike Mibach has filled in for Somerville the past week, but officials at the station have not made it clear whether a permanent replacement has been chosen.