KDKA-TV general manager Chris Cotugno will retire next month and Tuesday, CBS appointed Western Pennsylvania native Julie Eisenman to take Cotugno’s place at the helm of KDKA and WPKD-TV (aka KDKA+).

Eisenman, a 1997 graduate of what is now Penn­West Clarion, comes to Pittsburgh’s CBS-owned station April 7 from WNEP, the ABC affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. She got her start in the business on the news side (as opposed to advertising sales), including a stint at Pittsburgh’s WPXI as an assistant assignment editor in the late 1990s.

Eisenman worked as news director at WICU in Erie, WJCL in Savannah, Ga., and WLTX in Columbia, S.C. She moved into the GM role at WNEP in 2021.

Cotugno joined KDKA in 2002 and worked as KDKA’s advertising sales director for years before he was appointed GM in 2019. Under his watch, KDKA added newscasts at 7:30 p.m. on KDKA and 8 p.m. on KDKA+ as well as afternoon weekday chat show “Talk Pittsburgh,” Friday night high school football on KDKA+ and weekend sports show “Fan N’ation.”

Unlike general managers at several CBS affiliates in recent years, Cotugno did not get pushed out of KDKA. He decided the time to retire was right following the birth of his first grandchild last year and in keeping with his life plan goals.

“I have a 30-30-30 plan,” said Cotugno, a Philadelphia native who worked in ad sales at Pittsburgh’s WPGH before his move to KDKA. “The first 30 years you’re having a good time. It doesn’t matter how hard you’re working. All the decisions you make are about you. The next 30 years you’re answering to everybody but yourself. Every decision is for everyone else: Raising kids, paying the bills, paying for tuition, the mortgage. Everything is designed for the last 30 years.”

Cotugno turned 60 in November and in December told his CBS bosses in New York he was ready to retire.

“We don’t know how much longer we’ve got,” he said. “From now until the day I die, I’m going out the same way I came in.”

Cotugno and his wife will move to Wake Forest, N.C., to be near their granddaughter. He plans to volunteer at a veterans center and an animal shelter.

Cotugno, an Air Force veteran who once owned a Cranberry gas station and a concrete business, will help new GM Eisenman learn the market for a week before he exits in mid-April, though he’ll continue to consult from afar for a period of time.

A TV fan from the first time he saw “Dark Shadows” in the late 1960s, Cotugno said he’s most proud of KDKA’s community efforts, including the Children’s Hospital Telethon and high school “Driving Skills for Life” and “Girls Rock Science” programs.

“The hardest part of management is understanding that people don’t do the job the same way you did,” Cotugno said. “As long as you’re getting the same results, you’ve got to manage them for how they do what they do and provide them with everything they need. …. Once you’re a GM, you realize you’re serving two clients: The viewers, to give them the information and entertainment they need, and advertisers, because you have to help them grow their business.”

‘Happy Face’

It’s one thing to fictionalize a true story. It’s another to Hollywoodize something real to a degree that the details are completely unbelievable. Sadly, Paramount+’s slow-paced “Happy Face” falls into the latter category.

Streaming its first two episodes March 20 (six more episodes roll out weekly on Thursdays), “Happy Face” is inspired by the true story of the “happy face killer,” Keith Jesperson, who claims to be responsible for dozens of murders in California and the Pacific Northwest, although only eight are confirmed.

Jesperson’s daughter, Melissa G. Moore, first appeared on a TV talk show and published a book about her father in 2008, and she’s gone on to an extensive media career in TV and podcasting. But I could find no evidence she worked in media before 2008.

“Happy Face” stars Annaleigh Ashford as a fictionalized Melissa, depicted as a makeup artist for what appears to be a nationally syndicated daytime talk show based in the Pacific Northwest, a thing that does not exist in real life, which immediately gives a viewer pause. In the fictionalized series, Melissa gets roped into telling the story of her father (Dennis Quaid) on the talk show she works for, including investigating claims of a ninth victim and the man wrongfully convicted of that killing.

Basically, “Happy Face” jumps off from the real story then moves into fiction immediately, a disappointment for anyone expecting this “true crime” story to be, well, true.

Renewed

Paramount+ renewed “Landman” for a second season.

Apple TV+ will bring back Ted Lasso for a fourth season that finds Lasso coaching a women’s team, according to “Ted Lasso” star Jason Sudeikis on Jason and Travis Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast last week.

Disney+ renewed “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” for a third season ahead of the show’s second season debut in December.

BET renewed “Tyler Perry’s Sistas” for a ninth season to premiere at 9 p.m. July 16.

Netflix renewed “Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black” for a second season.

Channel surfing

Pittsburgh-based Fred Rogers Productions received an award for outstanding interactive media at the third annual “Children’s Family Emmy Awards” Saturday for its PBS Kids series “Donkey Hodie.” … PBS’s “American Experience” tells the story of the Americans with Disabilities Act in “Change, Not Charity” (9 p.m. March 25, WQED-TV). … TNT will air HBO drama “True Detective: Night Country” (9-11 p.m. Fridays beginning March 28) and TBS will air the first season of “Hacks” (10-11 p.m. April 3-7) in advance of the April 10 season four premiere of “Hacks” on Max. … Game Show Network will debut an updated “Tic Tac Dough” hosted by Brooke Burns, airing weeknights at 7 p.m. beginning April 14. … Adam Sandler stars in “Happy Gilmore 2,” on Netflix July 25. … Conan O’Brien will return to host the 98th Oscars on March 15, 2026. … Chris O’Donnell (“NCIS: Los Angeles”) will star in ABC’s latest spinoff, “9-1-1: Nashville.”

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