Popular weather anchor Roberta Gonzales leaving KPIX
Popular Bay Area weather anchor Roberta Gonzales announced Thursday that, after 21 years at KPIX-TV (Channel 5), she is leaving television news to create her own production company and travel show.
Gonzales, known for her cheery on- screen disposition and boundless energy, said she has been focused on “a second chapter in life” for several years. Her contract at KPIX came up in June.
“It has been a longtime dream of mine. It was just a matter of making the leap,” she said in a phone interview.
Gonzales also was a regular contributor to KCBS radio 106.9 FM and 740 AM. Her final newscast for KPIX will be noon on Friday.
Gonzales, a longtime resident of Pleasanton, has already set up an office and small studio in Livermore.
“I want to hit the ground running on Monday,” she said. “The sky’s the limit.”
Gonzales hopes to have a travel show, tentatively titled “Where’s Roberta?” ready for local and national distribution in January. She said she also is working on a podcast, as well as a children’s book, due out in December.
In a letter to fellow staff members, she said her decision to leave didn’t come easily.
“I sincerely and wholeheartedly want to thank CBS for the privilege working over two decades at KPIX!” she wrote. “It has been an honor I have never taken lightly.”
Gonzales is a gung-ho weekend warrior who regularly participates in marathons and Ironman competitions. Those athletic quests have taken her across the globe and got her thinking about a travel show. But it was a two-week KPIX assignment that sent her to Australia in 2008 that really put the wheels into motion.
“That’s when the bug first really bit me,” she said. “That was one of the best experiences of my life.”