WSMV news anchor Dan Miller passes

For those that follow local news media, Dan Miller was one of my favs to follow and watch growing up. May he rest in peace.

By: Ken Whitehouse, ken.whitehouse@nashvillepost.com

Posted: Thursday, April 9, 2009 8:48 am
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Longtime WSMV-TV anchor and media icon Dan Miller died Wednesday night of a heart attack at the age of 67 in his hometown of Augusta, Ga.

Miller was in Augusta for the Masters Golf Tournament and was accompanied on the trip by longtime colleagues and friends Rudy Kalis and Terry Bulger. He was apparently walking through his old neighborhood with Kalis when he became short of breath.

Joining WSM-TV in 1969, Miller became one of the giants of Nashville's television personalities and part of the fabric of the city. He left the city, and the station, from 1986 until 1994, first becoming news anchor of KCBS in Los Angeles and then as the announcer and sidekick for Pat Sajak's short-lived late-night national CBS talk show. Sajak, who is host of the popular game show Wheel of Fortune, was a weatherman and radio announcer at WSM in the 1970s.

In addition to his work as anchor, Miller also hosted a Sunday night talk show on WSMV during the '70s and '80s called Miller & Company. The show, which was eventually picked up by the national cable channel TNN, featured Miller at his best, sitting in a restaurant booth casually speaking to guests in his friendly but engaging style.

Perhaps the best remembered episode of that show was one Miller was barely on. It was during the Christmas holiday season in the early '80s and Miller said on air that many families in Nashville didn't have the opportunity to gather around a yule log and talk to each other. Maybe they lived in apartment buildings or homes without a fireplace, he said, so his gift that year to the city was a broadcast of logs burning in a fireplace for the entirety of the show.

NashvillePost.com, The City Paper and the entire SouthComm family of publications extends its deepest sympathies to Miller's family, colleagues and friends at WSMV-News Channel 4, and all those who knew him well.

Shetika