TV Talk: Where are these former Pittsburgh TV news anchors now?

While the dog days of summer TV no longer exist, I’m taking a break from the rushing river of new content this week to catch up with some former local TV personalities.

Brenda Waters

One of the most-liked Pittsburgh TV anchors/reporters of recent decades by both viewers and her newsroom colleagues, Brenda Waters retired from KDKA-TV in May 2020.

“There was really no set time,” she said of leaving KDKA. “The industry is changing a lot and when my news director Kathy called me in and told me she was taking me off the (weekend morning) anchor desk, I said, ‘Well, she’s making changes, she’s putting in younger people, so perhaps it’s time.’”

Waters moved to Atlanta in December 2020, a city she visited often to see her best friend. Then came a job offer to be capitol correspondent for Georgia Public Broadcasting’s “Lawmakers,” a 7 p.m. weeknight show that aired during the Georgia State Legislature’s session from January to March.

“I’d never covered politics,” Waters said. “I always said, if you see me on a political story in Pittsburgh, every reporter in the newsroom is dead.”

Waters said she called KDKA political editor Jon Delano about her new gig.

“Can I do this?” Waters asked him. “And he’s like, ‘You can do it, Brenda. I know you can do it.’ Then I would send my clips to Jon and other folks and they’re going, ‘You know what you’re talking about!’ That’s the best compliment ever.”

She may return to “Lawmakers” in 2022.

Waters said she doesn’t miss KDKA but she does miss her co-workers, especially “the photographers and reporters.” And she misses going to the grocery store in Pittsburgh.

“I have the habit of talking to people anyway but at least in Pittsburgh they knew who they were talking to and I miss that,” Waters said. “I would always give myself an extra 45 minutes to an hour when I went to the store because I knew that someone was going to strike up a conversation. And if you’re a public figure, you just can’t say, ‘I gotta go, I can’t talk to you.’ People had complained to me about people at other stations who would not talk and I never wanted to be that person.”

Bob Bruce

In the media business, it’s never a bad idea to have a backup plan. Former WPXI-TV morning anchor Bob Bruce began thinking about life after TV in 1998, two years into what would be a 13-year stint at Channel 11 that ended in 2009 when he left the business to work full time in wealth management at Integrity Wealth Consulting, the Wexford-based firm he runs with his son, Scott.

Bruce said he came to WPXI with the promise of replacing Kris Long as an evening anchor. When station management decided to keep Bruce on mornings, he started studying to become a financial planner.

When station management wanted to discuss his contract renewal in early 2009, a time when TV stations were hurting due to the financial recession, Bruce expected to be asked to take a pay cut, so he surprised his bosses, telling them he’d retire at the end of the year instead. He said station executives didn’t know about his financial business until they read a column I wrote in December 2009 about Bruce’s departure.

Bruce, who now splits his time between Pittsburgh and Phoenix, credits his time in TV with “providing me the equivalent of about 15 college degrees because there’s not a kind of person, good or bad, that you can describe that I haven’t physically sat in front of and talked to. That provides an education that is beyond anything.”

When he’s in Arizona, Bruce only has to drive 2 miles from his home to a Steelers bar, Harold’s Cave Creek Corral.

“Anytime I want a Pittsburgh fix, that’s where I go,” Bruce said. “Pittsburgh will follow me for the rest of my days.”

Shawn Yancy

Former WTAE-TV weekend anchor Shawn Yancy spent five years in Pittsburgh, leaving in 2001 for a weekend anchor job at WTTG-TV, the Fox affiliate in Washington, D.C., a Top 10 TV market.

“My second day here in Washington was 9/11,” Yancy recalled. “No matter where I had been, if it was in Pittsburgh or in Washington, D.C., I was going to be covering that story.”

Yancy moved up to weekday evening newscasts, anchoring a 10 p.m. newscast alongside former KDKA-TV reporter/anchor Jim Lokay. Former WPXI-TV reporter Steve Chenevy was also one of Yancy’s colleagues at WTTG.

Yancy departed WTTG in September 2020 and in January moved across town to NBC affiliate WRC-TV, where the news director is Mike Goldrick, who once ran the news department at WPXI.

“When I got hired at WTAE, I did not know how to report and thank gosh for the news director there, Tom Petner,” Yancy said. “He took me under his wing and said, ‘Look, I think you have a lot of potential and talent and we’re going to work on your reporting and make it stronger.’ If it had not been for him, I think I would still be foundering so I’m eternally grateful for him.”

‘Jungle Cruise’

Disney’s “Jungle Cruise,” inspired by the theme park attraction of the same name, arrives in theaters and as a $30 add-on for Disney+ subscribers Friday. It’s not a trip worth taking.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays an Amazon jungle cruise skipper with Emily Blunt (“The Quiet Place”) as an adventurous passenger in what could have been a fun Indiana Jones-style adventure but instead is an over-long, CGI/green screen slog that recycles almost all the bad jokes/puns skippers use on the Magic Kingdom ride within the movie’s first 15 minutes.

Canceled/revived/spun-off

PBS Kids’ “Arthur” will end its run of original episodes with its 25th season in winter 2022.

Former The WB series “The Surreal Life” will be revived on VH1 with Dennis Rodman, Frankie Muniz, Kim Coles, Stormy Daniels and Tamar Braxton in the cast.

NBC soap “Days of Our Lives” will get a five-episode limited series spin-off on NBC-owned streaming service Peacock. Lisa Rinna, Deidre Hall, Jackee Harry and James Reynolds will be among the stars of “Days of Our Lives: Beyond Salem.”

Channel surfing

Mt. Lebanon native Joe Manganiello will be one of the stars of AMC’s “Moonhaven,” about a utopian community built on the moon 100 years in the future. He’ll play a philosophical ex-military aide to an Earth diplomat to the lunar colony. … Former KDKA-TV general manager Jay Howell, who ran KDKA from 2018-19 before he was promoted by CBS to be GM of KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, was ousted from KCBS after an investigation that followed a Los Angeles Times expose on hostile working conditions for women and people of color at several CBS-owned stations. … “Dexter: New Blood” premieres at 9 p.m. Nov. 7 on Showtime. … “Pray Away,” a documentary about the history of the damaging “ex-gay” movement, debuts on Netflix Aug. 3. … A.J. Ross is a new temporary freelancer on KDKA-TV reporting from Steelers training camp and Steelers pre-season coverage.