TV Talk: Peggy Finnegan announces retirement from WPXI-TV

Veteran WPXI-TV news anchor Peggy Finnegan announced she’ll retire from the station next month. Her last day on the air will be Dec. 18 with news anchor Lisa Sylvester taking Finnegan’s place on the 5 p.m. newscast.

Finnegan’s retirement comes after 30 years with Channel 11, where she and anchor David Johnson became the current longest-running pair of local news anchors in Pittsburgh and, likely, nationally.

Finnegan, 60, joined Channel 11 in January 1990 and shared not only community news but also personal news, including the births of her four children and a battle with breast cancer. The timing of her retirement is linked to when she started at the station and the expiration of her contract at the end of the year (she was already scheduled to use vacation time the last two weeks of 2020).

Finnegan said the decision to retire was entirely hers.

“I have been thinking about this for 10 years since David and I had our 20th and he said, ‘You just have to stay until we make it to 25,’ and then it was, ‘Promise me you’ll stay until we make it to 30,’” Finnegan said Monday afternoon. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about a long, long time. 30 years seemed about the right amount.”

With several children living in Boston and a summer home on Cape Cod that she’s only been able to visit a few weeks each summer, Finnegan said she just had a sense the time was now. Add in the impact of covid-19 and it helped her make what she still called a difficult decision.

“I’m pretty excited about (retirement) but it is an interesting mix of sorrow and excitement because I really have very, very dear friends (at WPXI) and I will miss them greatly,” she said. “I want to be free to travel and spend more time with my family and dear friends. It’s just a new phase in life.”

She said in the past, when asked about the most impactful news story she’s covered, it would have been 9/11. Now it’s covid.

“There are stories that make you change your life and the way you think about things,” she said. “(Covid) is a big wakeup call for a lot of people. Life is really fickle and it can be way too short for many people … It just makes you realize that your time is precious.”

Finnegan’s long-time co-anchor David Johnson said he was surprised but not completely shocked when he learned of Finnegan’s decision late last week.

“It makes me sad that she’s not going to be around because she’s not only my co-anchor but my dear, sweet friend,” said Johnson, who acknowledged that while the term “work wife” may be clichéd, it is apt in their situation. “We talk about it all the time and every now and then a viewer says, ‘Are you two married?’ and we say, ‘I thought we put that to rest about 20 years ago?’” To be clear, they are both married to other people. “We’ve just been together so long it seems like we’re married and that’s a wonderful thing,” Johnson said.

“I’ve loved our time together and I said at one of the awards things we won that she carried me all these years and I’m about half-serious about that. Just the way she lights up the screen has certainly enhanced my career.”

WPXI news director Scott Trabandt emphasized the respect Finnegan and Johnson have for their positions at the station and in the community, noting that on the region’s worst days – the Flight 427 crash, 9/11, the Tree of Life shooting – the pair have offered informative, detailed and empathetic coverage.

“To work next to someone for 30 years in any field is a great achievement. When you layer in the pressures of being the faces of a brand in a journalism market like Pittsburgh, with such great competitors, it’s truly remarkable,” Trabandt said. “One thing I suspect we’ll hear a lot over the coming weeks is that Peggy and David are as nice and genuine off the air as they are on it, and it’s true. … Even now, in 2020, their desks are still right next to each other’s in the newsroom. They’re not in corner offices, but in the middle of the action.”

Finnegan said her future won’t include broadcasting endeavors away from Channel 11.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “I’m gonna enjoy not doing much.”

WPXI’s news release announcing her retirement said Finnegan will remain connected to the station and will potentially be part of future special report coverage and community events. Finnegan indicated there’s nothing specific planned.

“I feel so connected there, if they reach out to me and need me for something, I would probably be delighted, if I’m not somewhere else in the country, to assist them,” she said.

Trabandt said a decision on how to fill Finnegan’s role on the 12 p.m. news, which she anchors with Gordon Loesch, likely won’t be announced until sometime in early 2021.