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Even considering the subject area of the thread, that’s a very niche piece of news.

Not really. Jim Gardner is/was one of the longest tenured anchors in Philadelphia broadcasting and local TV history (alongside the late Hal Fishman and Dave Ward) as, according to Wikipedia…

He currently solo anchors the 6:00 PM weekday newscasts, which he has done since May 11, 1977; he solo anchored the 11:00 PM weekday newscast between May 11, 1977, and January 11, 2022. He has covered every Democratic and Republican presidential convention since 1980, and has interviewed every president and major presidential candidate since 1976.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gardner_(broadcaster)

To summarise things, Gardner is one of the Action News stalwarts, and WPVI has tended to have long tenured staff. He joined WPVI in 1976 and, just one year old there, replaced Larry Kane in the evening newscasts when he got a chance upstate at WABC’s Eyewitness News (where he covered Blackout ‘77). His retirement is the end of an era at WPVI, however, Brian Taff, which has all that OTT local news anchor style the Action News format is known for, has been closely linked as Gardner’s heir apparent. Worth noting that another Action News vet, Rick Williams, is solo anchoring the 11pm edition since January, as Gardner stepped down to prep his retirement.