Catching up: WYEP/WESA unionized; Johnson retires Friday; where has the editor of this site been?
December 11, 2024After a nearly two year negotiation with SAG-AFTRA, hosts, music directors, reporters, editors, and digital content staff at WESA (90.5) and WYEP (91.3) ratified a 3-year contract with the union. According to the Pittsburgh Union Progress, the contract includes better wages and time-off benefits and still allows for flexible hours and scheduling. Perhaps most important in this day and age are the strong protections as to the use of artificial intelligence.
Both stations are owned and operated by Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting Corp.
It will be difficult once next week comes to turn on WPXI (11) knowing David Johnson is no longer a part of the team. As we announced a few weeks ago, the evening anchor is retiring after a 45-year career, the last 40 of which have been spent at WPXI. Johnson was recognized by Pittsburgh City Council on Tuesday calling December 10, 2024 “David Johnson Day” in Pittsburgh. The station began a tribute on Wednesday’s evening newscast.
Johnson first anchored the Noon news when arriving in January, 1985 going up against Bill Burns and daughter, Patti on KDKA-TV (2). But a few years later in 1989 at age 32 he was asked to anchor the 11:00 p.m. broadcast, and he never looked back!
Johnson’s last newscast will be Friday, December 13 at 6:00 p.m. No word on who will take over the position, but some think it will be morning anchor Gordon Loesch who has already been with the station for over a decade.
And finally this time around…
While it may seem that I have been hiding from the site lately, I remain grateful that the local TV/radio scene has remained somewhat subdued and “ho-hum” in spite of some of the aforementioned events. That said, working as a church parish administrator in the month of December, it’s kinda busy. Being a December baby married to a December baby and sharing an anniversary in December… well it’s kinda busy. Oh… and that Parkinson’s thing too… but that’s not just a December thing.
But I have been working on some ideas in the background and will be putting them to paper in 2025… stay tuned!
Add to that, John Steigerwald has retired from WPGP AM 1250. Thursday 12/12 was his sign off, and lucky I was there to hear it. He said he is switching to the podcasting world, to keep up with the times, so we’ll still hear him, just not on the radio as he’s been for the past 6 years.
I’m thinking that “retirement” is a kind word for it…
There may be more to it, when someone leaves on a Thursday. John said that being on line is where it’s at now, when CNN gets a million viewers, and a podcast gets 6 million.
Another side of it is Salem Radio is having a shakeup in the schedule for their hosts. Sebastian Gorka has been in the 3 to 6 pm slot, with Steigerwald preempting the last hour. With Gorka headed back to the White House to serve with president Trump, morning drive’s Hugh Hewitt is switching to Gorka’s slot. Hewitt has many more years in radio than Gorka has, so maybe he doesn’t want stations to preempt? I could see that.
Although Salem has a top flight list of talkers, I like hearing local talent on the air at stations too, so I think WPGP has lost something. I liked that Steigerwald’s show was monologue with a guest each half hour, with no phone calls because it was recorded earlier that day, pleasant to hear over caller-driven shows, with the poor quality of phones these days, with their delays, popping and hissing.
Boomer