WRAL anchor/reporter leaves the station after 9 years. What’s next
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- Lena Tillett leaves WRAL after nine years, announcing a move to NBC 10 Philadelphia.
- She will begin as weekday evening anchor on Jan 12, 2026.
- Tillett previously worked in New York and in Omaha, Nebraska.
A WRAL anchor and reporter who has worked at the Triangle television station for nearly a decade is leaving.
Lena Tillett announced on social media Wednesday, Nov. 19, that she was taking a new job in Philadelphia.
“This is a bittersweet goodbye,” Tillett wrote in the social media post. “The Triangle has taken care of me these last nine years.”
Most recently, Tillett has been part of WRAL’s afternoon and evening newscast team. She joined WRAL in August 2016 as a morning anchor/reporter for WRAL and Fox 50, which is also owned by Capitol Broadcasting Co.
Her last day at WRAL is Tuesday, Nov. 25, news director Mike Friedrich told The News & Observer in an email.
Where is Lena Tillett going?
Tillett will begin her new role at NBC10 News in Philadelphia on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. She will anchor the weekday evening news at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.
“I’m thrilled and humbled to join the incredible news team at NBC 10 in Philadelphia,” Tillett wrote in the social media post. “I’ll be an evening anchor in a market I once dreamed of reaching as an anchor. It also puts me closer to family to love on my boys!”
Tillett, who is originally from Washington, D.C., told NBC 10 that she has “such fond memories” visiting Philadelphia and competing at the track and field competition Penn Relays in high school and college.
“Although it was a big city, it felt close-knit and intimate,” Tillett told NBC 10. “I’m looking forward to learning about the many different neighborhoods and couldn’t be more thrilled to start the year Philadelphia is celebrating America’s 250th birthday!”
Former ABC 11 meteorologist Robert Johnson, who left the station in January, also works at NBC 10.
Lena Tillett’s journalism career
During her time in the Triangle, Tillett has anchored newscasts in the morning, afternoon and evening.
When WRAL added an hour-long newscast on weekday mornings in 2019, the station tapped Tillett and Ken Smith to anchor the new, 9-10 a.m. show.
Tillett later replaced Kathryn Brown as a weekday afternoon and evening anchor for WRAL and Fox 50, when Brown left WRAL and broadcast news in 2020.
Before joining WRAL and Fox 50 in 2016, Tillett was an anchor and reporter at WOWT-TV in Omaha, Nebraska, and a freelance reporter at News 12-The Bronx and News 12-Brooklyn.
Her career in the media started in 2010, when Tillett worked as a production assistant at ESPN Radio and ESPN New York, according to her WRAL bio.
Tillett is an Emmy and Edward R. Murrow award winner. She has also been named Anchor of the Year for Television by the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in government and English from Georgetown University. She later graduated from New York University with a master’s degree in journalism.
Changes at WRAL
Tillett is the latest on-air journalist to leave WRAL this year, following people such as Gilbert Baez, Aaron Thomas, Debra Morgan, Jeff Hogan, Julian Grace and Laura Leslie.
