As of Jan. 1, Allison Alexander will be the 6 and 11 p.m. anchor for WLNE.

Channel 6, which officially changed ownership last month, announced yesterday a new appointment to its anchor desk: Allison Alexander, who comes most recently from the CBS affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio. She begins effective Jan. 1.

Stephen Doerr, the new vice president and general manager of the ABC station, who worked with Alexander in Cleveland, said in a press release that she has “wit, warmth” and an “energetic presentation.” Alexander is “a major talent,” said Doerr, who noted that Alexander has won an Edward R. Murrow Award for her TV reporting.

Alexander, a graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University, has worked as an anchor/reporter in Sherman Texas, Shreveport, La., Tucson, Ariz., and Cleveland until September, when her contract reportedly was not renewed.

Alexander replaces Melissa Mahan at the anchor desk. This follows the early-October exits of April O’Dell and veteran Walter Cryan, a Massachusetts native whose Rhode Island broadcasting career began on radio in 1965. Cryan left just before the ownership change from Freedom Communications to Global Broadcasting of Southern New England.

One of the company’s first organizational changes was letting news director Edwin Hart go, which is why Cryan, 75, left. He came out of retirement three years ago to lead Channel 6’s news broadcast at Hart’s request. The two men had become friends in the 1980s when they held similar positions at Channel 12.

Cryan said his contract with Channel 6 stipulated that he would be free to leave if Hart was replaced as news director. Doerr, who has more than 25 years of experience in broadcasting, now serves as the station’s acting news director. He also replaces the station’s former general manager, Roland T. Adeszko.

Among other changes, the station has changed the style of graphics it uses on its newscast, and, according to Jason Nye, a station spokesman, it is in the process of reconstructing its Web site.

Kevin O’Brien, a San Francisco resident, is president and chief executive of the company. His business partner, senior vice president Robinson Ewert, now lives in Westerly, a community where he has spent summers for the past 20 years. Both had been executives at the Iowa-based Meredith Broadcasting Group. Channel 6 is the first television station purchased by Global Broadcasting.

When the sale of the station to Global Broadcasting of Southern New England was announced in March, O’Brien and Ewert said they plan to invest in the station and expand the news staff in hopes that the third-place newscast could compete with Channels 10 and 12.

Doerr was unavailable for comment yesterday.