Eilon to step down from Channel 10

For the better part of two decades, Yaakov Eilon, the top news anchor at Channel 10, has been reading the news.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Yaakov Eilon 390 (photo credit: Courtesy of Gilad Adin/Wikipedia)
Yaakov Eilon 390
(photo credit: Courtesy of Gilad Adin/Wikipedia)
For the better part of two decades, Yaakov Eilon, the top news anchor at Channel 10, has been reading the news, but this week he made news by tendering his resignation via email to CEO Uri Rozen.
Eilon also made news a decade ago when he and co-anchor Miki Haimovich left Channel 2 to be pioneer broadcasters on the new Channel 10.
They had also been on the ground floor of Channel 2, which they joined close to its inception in 1993. When they moved to Channel 10, Eilon’s then-significant other, Yonit Levy, took Haimovich’s place as female news anchor at Channel 2.
Eilon was reportedly furious at this development and their romance broke up, never to be rekindled.
Eilon and Haimovich weathered the economic storms that have frequently rocked Channel 10, but Eilon – among other highly paid staff members – did not get his January salary on time and was subsequently informed that the channel’s management would be instituting a 15-percent pay cut among employees in the higher wage bracket.
Eilon had been discontented long before that. He was far from thrilled when Haimovich announced her departure from Channel 10 at the end of 2010 because she felt that she had nothing more to give.
Eilon was even less thrilled to learn that Haimovich would be replaced by Tamar Ish-Shalom, with whom he refused to share the microphone, insisting that they appear separately on the small screen.
The straw that appears to have broken the camel’s back was Channel 10 having to move its news broadcast at the beginning of January – from its Givatayim studios to Jerusalem Capital Studios – to comply with the law that all media outlets receiving state funding must broadcast their news from the capital. This apparently cramped Eilon’s style, because it prevented him from doing studio interviews or staying in close contact with editors and reporters.
Channel 1 has never had this problem, since it uses technology that enables its Jerusalembased anchors to interview people in Tel Aviv, Haifa or any of the Broadcasting Authority’s mobile studios throughout the country. While this is not quite the same as conducting interviews face-to-face, it is better than Skype.
In Eilon’s letter to Rozen, he complained about technical snafus.
Eilon has decided to stay on until the end of April instead of departing immediately.