The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profiles steel city morning team anchors Rick Dayton (left) & Todd McDermott (right) at WPXI:
As a TV market, Pittsburgh stations generally have more stable anchor lineups than many other American cities (see the 20-year teaming of Peggy Finnegan and David Johnson as Exhibit A). But slowly, inevitably change does come.
In the past six months there has been marked change in stations' morning anchor lineups: WTAE's Kelly Frey was on maternity leave for several months, KDKA introduced a new morning team in Jennifer Antkowiak and Rick Dayton, and Bob Bruce retired from WPXI to run his own financial planning firm, working with former co-anchor Newlin Archinal.
Todd McDermott is the newest face in the morning on Channel 11. He began at the station last month, and with anchor Jennifer Abney he has been presiding over a long slog of morning snow coverage/school closings ever since. But he's used to the weather: Mr. McDermott grew up in snowy Buffalo, N.Y.
He studied political science at Canisius College with no intention of going into TV, although he did work for three Buffalo radio stations to make money while in school.
"I wanted to go to law school," Mr. McDermott said in a conversation earlier this month. "I just didn't have the financial wherewithal to try law school."
Friends in communications helped him make a demo tape and he landed at a TV station in Wichita, Kan., as a street reporter. From there it was the usual TV news trek from market to market, including anchoring the morning news for WMAR in Baltimore and a four-year stint at WCBS in New York.
While at WCBS, he was loaned out to fill in as the newsreader on CBS's "The Early Show," and he anchored on WCBS from 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, following the terrorist attacks.
Most recently Mr. McDermott worked at WUSA in Washington as the station's lead anchor, departing in September 2008.
"They approached me about six months before my departure and made me an offer that I just didn't want to sign," he said. "That summer I was holding out for something better, and I had a couple of other prospects and then the bottom dropped out [of the TV news business]. My agent said, 'You were ahead of the curve' when stations started letting go of main anchors because of salaries."
Mr. McDermott, who also anchors Channel 11's noon news, said he had offers for jobs in larger TV markets and one in Southern California but he opted for Pittsburgh for several reasons.
"First of all, I'm comfortable in this part of the country," he said. "Secondly, I have to be honest with you, the television product in Pittsburgh -- at all the stations in Pittsburgh -- is at an extremely high level compared to much of the country, including much larger markets."
TV viewers who have not seen local TV news elsewhere may think that to be false flattery but I've said it before myself: As much as we complain about TV news in Pittsburgh, I've seen worse in larger cities.
Mr. McDermott, who is divorced and single, also said his decision to take the Channel 11 job offer was swayed by the proximity to New York, where his two teenage children live, and by the friendly nature of the people he met.
"I came back several times before I decided [to take the job] and when you're at the rental car counter and people are asking where you're from and they are so friendly," he said. "People here are just tremendous and that's not the same everywhere."
In addition, Mr. McDermott's predecessor, Mr. Bruce, encouraged him to take the WPXI job.
"He asked to speak to me," Mr. McDermott said. "He said, 'You've gotta come here. You've worked in the biggest markets and you know the dirty secret,' and I'd heard this years ago that there's no 'big time.' They're all the same job and I figured that out even working at the network."
As for Pittsburgh morning TV's other newcomer, KDKA's Rick Dayton, he has settled in comfortably anchoring next to Jennifer Antkowiak.
"It has been a real treat for me to work with people like Jen, and Jim [Lokay] and Dennis [Bowman]," he said. "I hope it comes across to people at home how much fun we have working together."
Mr. Dayton said it has been a challenge to move from evening anchor work at his previous job in the Charleston-Huntington, W.Va. market to mornings here. But with three kids at home, all involved in sports, the hours are more conducive to being involved in coaching Little League games.
"It's a great schedule from that standpoint to be part of what they're doing," he said.
Mr. Dayton, a Grove City native, also has been reporting regularly for evening newscasts.
"I love being out among the people of Pittsburgh and talking to them about the things they're concerned about," he said. "You're putting your finger on the pulse of Pittsburgh. You can't get that sitting behind a desk."
Both Mr. McDermott and Mr. Dayton have ratings reasons to be happy: In January, WPXI was the highest-rated local morning newscast in overall viewers and a key demo; KDKA, a perpetual third place finisher, tied WTAE for second place at 5 a.m. in households and 6 a.m. in the adults 25-54 demo and placed No. 2 at 5 a.m. in the same key demo.