Lund Returning to KABC News : Television: The news anchor left broadcasting in 1986 to care for her two daughters.

Christine Lund will be returning to her former news anchor job at KABC Channel 7 after a four-year absence, station executives confirmed Thursday.

Lund, an integral element in KABC’s dominance in the local ratings race for most of the 1980s, will co-anchor the 4 p.m. newscast alongside Harold Greene, beginning about Nov. 1, said Terry Crofoot, the station’s general manager. November is one of three key ratings “sweeps” periods.

Lund was last seen on the air in June, 1986, when, after failing to negotiate a reduction in her work schedule, she decided to leave broadcasting entirely to care for her two young daughters. At the time, KABC had been firmly ensconced in first place among local stations since 1979. Since then, KABC has seen its news ratings decline and rival KNBC Channel 4 has overtaken it for bragging rights in news for most of the past two years.

When asked if the addition of Lund will boost his station’s news viewership, Crofoot said, “I never predict ratings. I will say that Christine’s return will improve the quality of our newscasts, and I feel viewers will be happy to have her back on the air. We still get cards and letters from viewers asking where she is.”

With both of her children now in school, Lund for the past year has been testing the waters for a return to the air. KCAL Channel 9 was interested in her as part of its three-hour prime-time newscast, but a deal was never consummated. More recently, both KNBC and KCOP Channel 13 reportedly had been negotiating with Lund.

Jeff Wald, news director at KCOP, said Thursday that he had made her a lucrative offer but that she had turned it down because she would have had to co-anchor Channel 13’s 10 p.m. newscast and didn’t want to be away from her children at night.

“I’m not privy to what the other stations offered her,” KABC’s Crofoot said. “We simply made the effort to have Christine come home.”

Laura Diaz, KABC’s current 4 p.m. female anchor, will move to the 6 p.m. newscast to make way for Lund. Paul Moyer and Ann Martin, who on Monday will celebrate their 10th anniversary as an anchor team at KABC, will remain the centerpiece of the station’s 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts.

Meanwhile, Tawny Little, who currently co-anchors the half-hour broadcast at 6 p.m., will no longer anchor news at KABC. She will continue to co-host the top-rated “A.M. Los Angeles” weekdays at 9 a.m., however, and Crofoot said that she might be involved in special series and mini-docs on any of the station’s five daily newscasts.