Hartford Radio: News Anchor Angela Dias Retiring From WTIC-AM

Angela Dias

Connecticut radio loses a warm, familiar voice this week, as longtime WTIC 1080 AM news anchor Angela Dias retires. Dias announced that her last day at WTIC will be Friday. Some of her colleagues at the station, including morning hosts Ray Dunaway and Joe D’Ambrosio, plan to offer tributes and reminisces during her final days on the air.

“People were surprised,” Dias says of the reaction to her on-air announcement. “But I have been here 35 years. Did they think I was going to pull a Bob Steele?” Steele was on WTIC for 66 years, and was still with the station when Dias joined it in 1985.

The Hartford Courant reports Dias had been mulling retirement for a year or so. “The time was right. Then, with the pandemic, I thought maybe I would stick around a little while longer, since all the things I would want to do, like travel and go to the theater, were not happening.

She looks forward to pursuing other interests. “I majored in Political Science, and I’m still interested in that kind of thing. But that’s not my only focus.” One passion that she hopes to return to post-pandemic is acting. She has been in numerous local theater shows.

Mostly, though, Dias wants a break from middle-of-the-night alarm clocks and tight radio newsroom timetables. “This job can be very interesting, but I’m ruled by the clock. I want to be free from the tyranny of the clock!”

She credits her WTIC colleagues with keeping the job lively and interesting over the decades. “I’m going to miss the guys I work with — and most of them were guys — because everyone who works here is so smart, funny and irreverent.”

Fellow WTIC news anchor John Silva, who’s worked at the station for 20 years and alongside Dias for eight of those years, says Dias will be missed. “She’s great. She’s hilarious, one of the funniest people I’ve worked with. Newsrooms can be chaotic, and it’s important to have a sense of humor.”