Kris Gutierrez returning from Chicago to be NBC5's new 5 p.m. co-anchor

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
Kris Gutierrez is circling back to North Texas to become co-anchor of NBC5’s 5 p..m. weekday newscasts.

The Fort Worth-based station made the announcement Wednesday, with Gutierrez scheduled to start in March.

“This is a Texas homecoming for a journalist seasoned by regional stories like the Fort Hood shootings and the devastating Joplin tornado,” NBC5 Vice President of News Susan Tully said in a statement.

Gutierrez had been a Dallas-based national correspondent for Fox News before leaving in early 2012 to co-anchor the early morning newscasts on Chicago’s WBBM-TV. The Texas Christian University graduate also has worked for TV stations in Sherman, Austin and Houston.

Gutierrez’s wife, Krystle Gutierrez, had been a Fox4 news reporter during his time in Dallas. She then left the station to join him in Chicago.

In the four-week November “sweeps” ratings period, NBC5 ran first at 5 p.m. in total viewers and third among 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming). Gutierrez will team with incumbent NBC5 anchor Deanna Dewberry. Brian Curtis, the station’s 6 and 10 p.m. weekday co-anchor, had been filling in at 5 p.m. while management sought a permanent replacement.

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