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Anchor Alycia Lane arrived from Philadelphia with such hoopla back in 2009 — I believe I called her the most fun TV hire ever — and a year later Sean Murphy followed her from KYW to do the traffic reports here. Both have left NBC4 as of Wednesday. Off the website, everything — pfft. "Alycia Lane and Sean Murphy’s last day was today, October 16. We are grateful for the contributions they have both made to NBC4 and wish them the best in their future endeavors,” a station spokesperson told TVSpy, which broke the story. Lane had recently been co-anchoring the morning newscast, after the whole idea of grooming her for big things in LA didn't really work out. KNBC's morning team will now be co-anchors Michael Brownlee and Michelle Valles — the latter had recently been the morning weekend co-anchor.
Lane's firing rates barely a blip here, but it's news in Philadelphia. She was a hot property there even before the tabloid entanglements that came with her to LA as baggage — and which prompted NBC4 to issue a statement of support on the day after she was hired: "We're aware of her background and have looked into the claims against her, and we are very comfortable with our decision to have her join the station." Let's let TV Spy summarize:
During her five years in Philadelphia, Lane landed in the headlines for a highly-publicized tryst with co-anchor Larry Mendte and for her involvement in an altercation with a female New York City police officer. KYW released her from her contract in 2008, saying “it would be impossible for Alycia to continue to report the news as she, herself, has become the focus of so many news stories.”
She subsequently sued CBS and Mendte for defamation. Both cases were eventually dismissed.
That goes a little easy on the whole Lane-Mendtke brouhaha. After their affair, he broke into her emails and sent some around. He pleaded guilty to a charge growing out of the hacking in 2008, and later began working for Tribune during the worst of the Sam Zell horrors. In a 2011 Philadelphia Magazine story about his life after the fall, Mendte wrote, "I, like many other people, wish I never met Alycia Lane." The TV Spy story also understates the altercation in New York: she reportedly called the officer a dyke. An earlier Philadelphia Magazine story entitled The Very Public Self-Destruction of Alycia Lane included a line that is never good news in a profile: "Even after the bikini photos, CBS 3 still thought it could save her...."
OK, I'm not sure that I ever saw Lane on the morning news, but here's what I remember about her as the weekend anchor on Channel 4: she was good.
