Folks around Raleigh might have known or recognized this recent development…but those outside of the Triangle would have no reason to know if they aren’t told – WRAL-TV5’s Bob Holliday has ‘retired’. His last broadcast was Friday night.
The station is positioning the development as follows:
Bob Holliday, whose thoughtful approach has marked his work at 18 Final Fours and numerous other major events, is leaving WRAL after 28 years of anchoring and reporting.
Holliday has accepted a voluntary severance package offered by Capitol Broadcasting Company, which owns the television station.
It’s funny…I never took to Holliday as I grew up watching him/WRAL. It wasn’t just that it would be next to impossible for anyone to compete with/follow Tom Suiter; it was that Holliday seemed to have some light blue bias that he was fighting to hide. Imagine my ‘surprise’ when I read the following in WRAL’s article:
A University of North Carolina graduate, Holliday spent 10 years with the Village Companies, as news and sports director at WCHL radio. His time there included several years on the Tar Heel Sports Network.
He interviewed Dean Smith soon after Smith retired from North Carolina in 1997 – the only local television reporter to be granted an interview at the time.
Very recently, Holliday was credited with making a snide remark at the NC State Football Reunion where he commented to the effect that “there are no players here from an ACC championship team unless they played over 30 years ago”. That didn’t go over well with the natives.
But, in the end…Bob Holliday’s ‘legacy’ will always be that he was the “other guy” to that good old boy from Rocky Mount, Tom Suiter. We discussed Suiter’s departure from channel five in this entry that you will enjoy.
