The Sexiest Local Male News Anchor in Entire Country Is, Apparently, NBC10’s Keith Jones

Is NBC10 news anchor Keith Jones really the “sexiest male news anchor” in the entire country? (Photo courtesy NBC10)

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NBC10’s Keith Jones Named Sexiest Male Local News Anchor

You might have noticed that we’re a little obsessed with lists and rankings over here at Philly Mag. Whether it’s Best of Philly or the top 25 happy hours in the area or Philly’s 150 Most Influential People, we’ve got the list market cornered. And we put a lot of time and thought and, frankly, arguing into our lists. We stand by each and every one of them.

A lot of lists and rankings are also sent to us. Like, on a daily basis. For instance, the worst airports in the country. (Yes, we top the list.) There was the time that Manayunk somehow landed on USA Today‘s “Best Small Town Cultural Scene” list, which was wrong for so many reasons. USA Today also dropped the ball when it missed the Rocky statue and South Street on its list of Philly’s biggest tourist traps. We get so much of this crap that we even have a separate news category on our site called Fun with Lists.

Well, we’ve got a new ranking to add to the heap.

The Costa Rica-based internet gambling company BetUS decided to come up with a ranking called The Sexiest Male Celebrities in the U.S. According to BetUS, they didn’t just throw a bunch of names into a hat and pick them out. They tried their best to be semi-scientific. BetUS says it analyzed photos of each male celebrity and applied the Golden Ratio to come up with a beauty score. Also considered, the level of attractiveness of their occupation (whatever that means), their Instagram following (because of course), something about data from a “personality type database,” and then how often people are searching for them on Google.

They divided the celebrities into different categories:

• U.S. presidents: how pissed is Donald Trump that he was bested for first place by, in this order, Barack Obama and Franklin D. Roosevelt?
• Athletes: Kylie Kelce probably has a thing or two to say about Jason Kelce being in 30th place.
• Tech entrepreneurs: eh, who cares?
• Radio presenters: they only picked five, and no one Philly-related made the cut.
• Sports commentators: Stephen A. Smith landed at #5, proving raging assholes can be sexy, too.
• Superheroes: OK, ya lost me.
• Local news anchors.

And it is in this final grouping where Philadelphia came up with a big, er, win. You can thank NBC10 early morning anchor Keith Jones. Gotta admit: Never heard of him. I’m a 6ABC kinda guy. Plus, if I’m awake before Jones goes off the air at 7 a.m., there’s a major glitch in the matrix. Though there are other Pennsylvania news anchors on the ranking, none are in the Philly area. Which makes me wonder how, say, Brian Taff and Rick Williams feel about all this.

“When I first got this email, I thought this was some really elaborate spam,” Jones said on the air this morning. “They are really trying to get me to click on this link. My wife was the one who said it was real.”

To his credit, Jones groaned a whole lot during the segment and seemed squeamish that NBC10 was making him talk about it.

The Snow Is Coming! The Snow Is Coming!

But not really. Some of the local TV news stations have been doing their best to milk this Thursday’s snow possibility to lure you into watching the live forecasts. But it sounds like Philly’s snowfall totals will be close to immeasurable. Even in the Poconos, we’re only talking couple of inches. In other words, there’s nothing to see here, folks, at least as far as snow is concerned. That said, it sounds like Thursday is going to be cold and quite windy. Next week, we get a bit of a reprieve, with forecasted lows above freezing.

From Campbell’s to Commanders

That’s the move just made by Mark Clouse, who’s been the head of The Campbell’s Company (aka Campbell Soup) since 2019. As of January, he’ll be the team president of the Washington Commanders. Be sure to boo him loudly, Philly, and not just because of how gross the Campbell Bean with Bacon soup looks when you dump it out of the can.

By the Numbers

$500: What you’ll pay for a family-style dinner for six (a bottle of booze included!) at Little Walter’s, the Polish place that everybody has been talking about. I can’t believe I’m saying this about a Polish restaurant, but reservations for these special dinners have become among the hardest to get in the city. Which probably makes you really want to go, even if you can’t stand Polish food. For more details, click here.

$163 million: Value of a list of demands that the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation wants to make of the folks behind the proposed Center City Sixers arena, according to the Inquirer. For more on the PCDC, check out my interview with its executive director, John Chin. He’s pretty much the mayor of Chinatown.

$12 million: Fines against North Wildwood for doing unauthorized repairs to its troubled beaches that the state just canceled out as part of a settlement with the town in a long-running city vs. state feud. In exchange, North Wildwood is dropping its lawsuit with the state involving $30 million worth of trucked-in sand. That’s a lot of sand!

Reader Mail

I’ve been remiss on sharing reader mail of late, and I feel appropriately ashamed.

It’s fair to say that my column yesterday about the inappropriateness of Mike Jerrick making a suicide joke on the air didn’t go so well for me in the hate mail department. I am, depending on who you ask, an idiot, a snowflake, and someone who needs to be canceled. I fully stand by my take. There are plenty of things to joke about. When you have one of the largest morning TV audiences in the city, suicide doesn’t need to be one of them.

In silly news, I got a ton of responses to my piece the other day about the latest John Bolaris escapade, this one involving him trying to get into a bar that he had just been thrown out of. (Yes, there’s video.) My favorite: “I bet you by February, Trump names him Secretary of Bars.”

Local Talent

This Thursday, Philly native Blake Wexler comes back for a homecoming show at Helium. Check out his 2020 comedy album Live from the Pandemic for a taste of his comedy. There’s a great bit on it about the Giants and the Eagles.