Australian anchors officially designated as longest serving anchor duo by Guinness

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An anchor team in Australia has been certified by the Guinness World Records as the longest serving television news anchor duo.

The official record, as of Sunday, Jan. 31, 2022, is 36 years and 247 days and is held by Channel 7 Perth’s Rick Ardon and Susannah Carr, who are known as simply “Rick and Sue” to many viewers.

The record requires a pair of anchors or presenters to have been assigned to the same regularly scheduled weekday news broadcast continuously. It doesn’t account for vacation time or other days off.

According to the announcement, they surpassed an unspecified U.S. anchor team by several years, which likely references WNBC anchor team Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons, who were paired from 1980 to 2012, or about 32 years.

Guinness did not appear to track this record before Ardon and Carr were named record holders. It’s not uncommon for Guinness to add new records and it accepts requests from businesses and organizations to create new ones, including accepting payment for expedited requests.

In 2016, Houston anchor Dave Ward of KTRK got recognition as holding the record for anchoring the news on the same station for the longest period of time.

His record was listed at 49 years and 218 days and he would announce his retirement shortly after. He is now 82.

The somewhat similar record of “longest career as a television news broadcaster” is held by U.S. reporter Don Alhart at WHAM in Rochester, New York. In 2016 he was certified as the record holder with 50 years and 179 days of service.

Alhart is still working at WHAM as of Jan. 31, 2022, so his record is still intact.

Alhart also has the distinction of having spent his entire career at the same station, though it’s not clear if that’s a requirement to hold the record.