Ernie Anastos tells weatherman to 'Keep f---ing that chicken' on the air on Fox Channel 5 New York
Veteran New York anchor
Ernie Anastos is in hot water with WNYW/Channel 5 brass for seemingly letting an F-bomb get on the air.
"We are disappointed with Ernie's comment on the air Thursday night,"
Lew Leone, Channel 5 vice president and general manager, said in a statement.
Anastos, Leone said, was going to apologize for "his use of inappropriate language" on Thursday night's 10 o'clock news.
Anastos appears to have dropped the mother of all swear words in an off-the-cuff exchange with weatherman
Nick Gregory.
"I guess it takes a tough man to make a tender forecast," Anastos said to Gregory, mimicking the old
Frank Perdue commercials.
"I guess that's me," Gregory responded.
Then, as both men laughed, Anastos sounds like he says, "Keep f---ing that chicken."
The moment was punctuated by co-anchor
Dari Alexander, who grimaced, and her eyes popped wide as if she'd been hit with a Taser after Anastos' comment.
Insiders said Anastos maintains he said plucking rather than the F-word, and that would make sense given the context of what he was saying.
Videotape of the incident is inconclusive at best.
"Everybody likes Ernie, and knows he would never say that on the air," one staffer said. "Nobody has a bad word to say about Ernie. He's revered at the station."
And, whether he said plucking or the other word, by Thursday afternoon Anastos was an online sensation.
The clip was quickly posted on
Youtube.com and later popped up on
Facebook pages and a bevy of other online sites.
The fact is, more people probably saw the clip than the original moment.
That Anastos wasn't suspended or fired seemed to be a miracle.
Dennis Swanson, the executive who oversees the Fox stations, has an almost zero-tolerance policy when it comes to F-bombs on the air.
Though the scenarios are different, in May 2005, Swanson was in a similar spot at WCBS/Channel 2 when Arthur Chi'en dropped the F-word while being heckled by
Opie & Anthony operatives. Chi'en thought he was off camera at the time. He was fired.
It isn't the first time viewers have heard the F-bomb on local television, either. A year ago,
Sue Simmons used the word in an on-air promo, which she thought was being taped for use later. She apologized and was not penalized.
What happens to anchors who swear on-air is always a topic of debate. After Simmons' mishap, Daily News readers voted that she should not be suspended.
A poll at nydailynews.com Thursday asked readers what should happen to anchors who use foul language.
Perhaps a sign of the times, 40% of those responding said the anchors should be praised for making the news interesting.
Video in question, sure sounds like he drops the F bomb
YouTube - Ernie Anastos: "Keep ****ing that chicken"
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