Veteran WOKV radio morning news co-anchor Roxy Tyler was let go from the station Tuesday morning after the show ended.
Tyler was nearing 20 years with the station in March and has co-anchored “Jacksonville’s Morning News” for at least 15 years.
“I was shocked,” Tyler said Wednesday. “I had been with the company so long and had given more than 19 years of loyal service.”
Tyler, 51, said she was told the station wanted to take a different direction.
WOKV is owned by Cox Media Group.
Mike Dorwart, director of branding and programming, confirmed Tyler’s departure but would not comment about reasons.
“We absolutely have great respect for her, but we absolutely don’t discuss personnel changes,” he said Wednesday.
Asked who would replace Tyler, Dorwart said “current staff will be stepping into the interim while the station does a talent search.”
Dorwart said that process has begun.
Jacksonville’s Morning News airs 5-9 a.m. Monday-Friday on WOKV 690 AM and 104.5 FM.
Tyler also hosted Saturday programs “Q&A with JEA,” “Ask the Doctor” with St. Vincent’s HealthCare, and “Pet Health.”
“I feel lucky to have been in one place for as long as I have,” she said of the radio business. Tyler said she was looking for employment in news or in media and public relations.
Riverside Animal Hospital veterinarian John Rossi, a host of Pet Health Talk with Dr. Carlos Aragon, said Tyler was an excellent co-host.
“Her interest in animals and her professionalism took our show to the next level,” Rossi said Wednesday.
“She was really the magic ingredient I think we needed to make things happen on that radio program and we were kind of devastated that she is no longer with us.”
Tyler’s legal name is Paula Scherer but she is known primarily by her radio name. She has been in the Jacksonville broadcasting industry for 26 years.
Tyler is from Louisville, Ky., and followed her high-school best friend to Jacksonville, where he landed a job at Winn-Dixie after his family moved. The two have been married 33 years and have an adult daughter.
In a 2010 interview with the Daily Record, Tyler said she found her calling soon after moving to Jacksonville and joining Winn-Dixie in the deli-bakery, where she announced daily specials over the store’s public address system. Customers told her she “should do that for a living.”
She then attended broadcasting school, filled in on the air for a traffic reporter and received two phone calls that day to do radio. She said was recruited to every radio job she’s had since, although she also spent three years as a television producer.
Frank Powers, assignment manager at WJXT TV-4, worked with Tyler at WOKV from 1996-98 as a morning anchor and the news director.
He said he was surprised to hear that Tyler was gone and hopes she finds something that keeps her in Jacksonville.
“She is an icon in Jacksonville media,” Powers said.
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