Meteorologist Gardner departing WISH-TV for Boston

WISH-TV Channel 8 meteorologist Pamela Gardner is departing the station to take a job with WBZ-TV, the CBS affiliate in Boston, industry sources told IBJ.

Gardner.

WISH News Director Steve Bray notified the staff by email on Sunday of Gardner’s departure, which will take place at the end of November, the sources said.

WBZ chief meteorologist Eric Fisher tweeted Sunday that Gardner would be joining WBZ.

Gardner, an Indianapolis native, has served as the weekend meteorologist and has filled in during the weekday morning newscast as well. More recently, she was handling weekday morning traffic reports after Julie Patterson left the station in September.

Gardner’s departure comes less than a month after WISH-TV announced plans to add four extra hours of newscasts every weekday beginning Jan. 1, going from five to nine hours.

In August, CBS officials decided to change their local affiliation from WISH to WTTV-TV Channel 4. That change will take place Jan. 1, and there has been some concern among WISH officials that they would lose some of their news talent due to the changes.

In Gardner’s case, it could simply be a jump to a larger market. Boston is the seventh-largest U.S. media market and Indianapolis is 27th, according to New York-based Nielsen Media Research.

In addition to Patterson and now Gardner, WISH lost its sales director, Julie Zoumbaris, who departed in September to take that same position with WRTV-TV Channel 6. Zoumbaris had been with WISH since 2009.

Gardner joined WISH in November 2011. Before that, she was the morning meteorologist for WTHI-TV in Terre Haute.

Gardner attended Lawrence North High School and graduated from Ball State University in 2009 with a degree in telecommunications and a minor in meteorology.