Dan Spehler is joining WXIN, the Fox affiliate in Indianapolis, as a weekend anchor and general assignment reporter.

It is a return to Indianapolis for Spehler, who worked as a reporter and anchor at ABC affiliate WRTV from 2005-10. Since 2010, he has been a reporter and fill-in anchor at WKRC, the CBS affiliate in Cincinnati.

Spehler begins Monday at WXIN. He will anchor the weekend evening newscasts.

Grace Trahan is leaving WRTV after 18 years at the Indianapolis ABC affiliate, according to the Indianapolis Business Journal. Her last broadcast will be Friday.

“After much thought and consideration, I have decided that my family time is suffering and I cannot be the kind of mom I want to be to my three children,” Trahan said in a statement to IBJ. “While I have enjoyed 23 wonderful years in the news business (18 of those right here at RTV6), I have decided it is time to put my family first.”

Trahan joined the station in 1994 as a general assignment reporter. She has been the station’s morning and noon anchor since 1998. According to IBJ, Tanya Spencer, a WRTV general assignment reporter, will anchor the morning and noon newscasts until Trahan’s permanent replacement is named.

WRTV now has what no other station in Indianapolis has: a permanent street-level studio.

The ABC-affiliate announced today plans to open a permanent, glass-enclosed studio in downtown Indianapolis.

The space, located on Monument Circle in the center of the city, is in the Emmis Communications building, the home of local news/talk radio station WIBC.  Last November, WRTV and WIBC launched a news-gathering partnership.

“We are very pleased to take our partnership with WIBC to the next level,” WRTV vice president and general manager Larry Blackerby said, announcing the plans for the studio. Read more

Morning anchor Chris Pisano has left WRTV after almost two years at the Indianapolis ABC-affiliate.

WRTV news director Kevin Finch told TVSpy Pisano resigned for family reasons. His last day was earlier this month.

Pisano was the weekday morning and noon anchor for the station. His replacement has not yet been announced, according to a post from morning co-anchor Grace Trahan on the WRTV website.

A story about an anonymous lottery winner in Shelbyville, IN, took a strange turn recently when the winner was incorrectly identified by WRTV, the ABC-affiliate in Indianapolis.

Several local news outlets, including WRTV and Fox-affiliate WXIN, identified the winner as James Prather. On February 24, WRTV interviewed Prather’s estranged wife, Ericka, who hired an attorney to stake her claim to half of the $34.5 million jackpot. She told WRTV’s Chris Proffitt that her husband called her and asked her for a divorce after he won the lottery.

“I was like, is it because you just hit the lottery?’” she said in the interview. “And he’s like, ‘huh?’ He tried to say he didn’t, but then he’s like, ‘Yeah, I did.’”

One problem: Prather may not be the lottery winner.

Read more

Cliff Nicholson, a veteran meteorologist with more than 20 years of forecasting Indianapolis weather, died Friday morning. He was 62.

Nicholson was most recently a meteorologist at NBC-affiliate WTHR. He joined the station in 1998 and worked full-time for six years, occasionally returning on a freelance basis after he left in 2004. He also worked at CBS-affiliate WISH and ABC-affiliate WRTV.

WTHR chief meteorologist Chris Wright remembers Nicholson as “just a real nice guy,” according to a statement on the station’s website.

Indianapolis ABC-affiliate WRTV is shuffling talent on the evening newscasts.

According to the Indianapolis Business Journal, WRTV has tapped Jenna Kooi (previously known as Jenna Maloney), who has been working at the station as a freelance reporter, to anchor the 7 and 11 p.m. newscasts alongside Todd Connor.

Erika Flye, who currently serves as Connor’s 5 p.m. co-anchor, will expand her duties to also include the 6 p.m. newscast.

Until last fall, Connor’s co-anchor for the 6, 7 and 11 p.m. newscasts was Trisha Shepherd, who left in September for a position at the Riley Children’s Foundation.

Kyla Woods started this week as a traffic reporter and general assignment reporter for Cincinnati NBC-affiliate WLWT.

Woods was most recently a freelance traffic reporter at WRTV, the ABC-affiliate in Indianapolis. She has previously worked as a traffic and features reporter for WXIN, the Indianapolis Fox-affiliate.

WLWT creative services director Pete Salkowski told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Woods will also be a station ambassador for local events in addition to her duties as a reporter.

“I feel right at home in my new role at WLWT and I couldn’t have asked for a better station or community to join,” Woods said in a statement. “I look forward to preparing our viewers for their daily commute, and I’m grateful to be part of a team that’s leading the way – every day.”

WRTV anchor Trisha Shepherd will leave the Indianapolis ABC affiliate this month after four years at the station.

Shepherd, who accepted a position at the Riley Children’s Foundation, will do her final broadcast on September 23. “My family’s juggling act has become more challenging recently with both my husband and I working nights, and two of our three children in school full day,” she said in a statement. “I knew it was time for a big change.”

Shepherd was hired by WRTV in September 2007 at the same time as co-anchor Todd Wallace, who left the station in 2010 after his contract was not renewed. Wallace was replaced with former ABC News correspondent Todd Connor.

“I am SO thankful for a great 4-year run at WRTV and for a new direction that will give me more time to be the kind of mom I want to be,” Shepherd wrote on her Facebook page.

Reporter Chance Walser was playing a quiz game on-air with two local high schoolers when he asked a question that an adult man shouldn’t be asking a teenage girl.

Walser was covering the opening of Indianapolis’s prep football season on Friday and the lighthearted segment took a strange turn when Walser asked an unlikely follow-up question (video above–happens around the 1:45 mark). Read more