Another anchor shocker: Action News Jax anchor departing after 10 years

Two months after Jacksonville’s longest-tenured news anchor retired , another area broadcast journalist is stepping away from the anchor desk.

Action News Jax, which broadcasts its newscasts on CBS affiliate WJAX-TV 47 and FOX affiliate WFOX-TV 30, announced Wednesday that anchor John Bachman would be “stepping away to a job outside TV news.”

Wednesday’s evening newscasts were his last.

“It has become clear to me that now is the perfect time for me to turn a page in my career and do something new and different – something I have been thinking about doing for years,” Bachman said in a statement posted to the news organization’s website.

During Wednesday evening's newscast, Bachman addressed his viewers directly.

"Tonight is my last night with Action News Jax. I hate these things. After 10 years [at Action News] and 27 years in TV news, it is time for a change."

After thanking co-anchor Tenikka Smith Hughes, chief meteorologist Mike Buresh and the station's staff, Bachman thanked his viewers: "And finally, everybody at home, thank you very much for making this area such an incredibly great place to live, work and play. ... The Bachmans have planted roots and are we are staying put. You can't get rid of this sappy guy anytime soon."

Another big departure: Tom Wills' last regular shift at Channel 4: Tears, hugs, goodbyes and a standing ovation

Bachman announced plans that he and a partner would launch a communications company in the area.

For nearly a decade, Bachman has anchored the station’s marquee newscasts at 5, 6 and 11 p.m. on WJAX and at 6:30 and 10 p.m. on WFOX.

He joined the anchor desk at Action News in 2014 along with Hughes after the station made sweeping changes , choosing not to renew the contracts of on-air talent Mark Spain , Paige Kelton, Tera Barz , Mike Barz and Lynnsey Gardner . (Kelton would go on to stay at the station until March 2021 .) Hughes remains at the station.

"There's never been a blood bath here in this market like that one," WJXT-TV 4’s Tom Wills, then-dean of local newscasters, told the Times-Union in 2015. "I've been here since 1975, there's never been a time when a television station cleaned house of their on-air people."

Wills left WJXT on May 31 after a 49-year run at the independent station operating under the News4Jax banner, the market’s perennial leader in ratings. Following Wills' departure, longtime reporter Jim Piggott and assignment manager Frank Powers left in July. Together, the three had a combined 102 years of experience at WJXT.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Another anchor shocker: Action News Jax anchor departing after 10 years