Anchors Resign On Air: Maine Broadcasters Cindy Michaels and Tony Consiglio Quit Live after the Evening News [VIDEO]

Two news anchors at a local Main television station were sick of feuding with broadcasting management, so they decided to finally put in their resignations - live on the air. Just Tuesday evening (Nov. 20), popular Maine news anchors for the ABC affiliate WVII Cindy Michaels and Tony Consiglio resigned at the end of their 6 p.m. evening news telecast. The broadcasters initially kept their plans to quit secret from everyone else in the studio, wanting to wish their viewers a fair and proper farewell.

Following their typical evening news report, Michaels and Consiglio officially voiced their plans to resign:

Michaels kicked-off the announcement, stating "... And finally tonight, this will be Tony and my final show together right here on ABC 7. The last six years have been an interesting and enjoyable time for us as we have been the longest running news team in Bangor."

"On behalf of Cindy and me we have loved every moment bringing the news to you," Consiglio said. "Some recent developments have come to our attention, though, and departing together is the best alternative."

After a little more chit-chat, commenting on how much they will miss their viewers, the duo give one another a friendly goodbye hug and then are cut from the air, leaving viewers and co-workers in a state of shock and confusion. Michaels eventually explained the reasoning behind their resignations to the Bangor Daily News on Wednesday.

"There was a constant disrespecting and belittling of staff," Michaels explained to the local paper. "We both felt there was a lack of knowledge from ownership and upper management in running a newsroom to the extent that I was not allowed to structure and direct them professionally. I couldn't do everything I wanted to as a news director. There was a regular undoing of decisions... It's a culmination of ongoing occurrences that took place the last several years and basically involved upper management practices that we both strongly disagreed with. It's a little complicated, but we were expected to do somewhat unbalanced news, politically, in general."

Michaels summed up in a public statement: "We figured if we had tendered our resignations off the air, we would not have been allowed to say goodbye to the community on the air and that was really important for us to do that."

Apparently 46-year-old Michaels plans on remaining in Bangor to pursue a freelance writing career and work on a novel. Meanwhile Consiglio, 28, will continue his career "in another capacity."

According to WVII vice president and general manager Mike Palmer - "Upper management is not involved in the daily production of the news, period. We've made great changes over the last few months and are not slowing down. Over the last 15 to 18 months, we've been a raging locomotive of change."