WPXI Pittsburgh

Cox Media Group-owned WPXI Pittsburgh News Director Suzanne Nadell is leaving next month to take a similar position at Cox’s WSB-TV in Atlanta. Her replacement in Pittsburgh will be in-house: Managing Editor Scott Trabandt.

WPXI, Cox’s NBC affiliate in Pittsburgh, leads the market in social media actions over the last six months according to data from audience insight firm Shareablee. WPXI has more than 5.3 million actions on social.

Cox Media moves her from its KOKI Tulsa to oversee news at its Pittsburgh NBC affiliate beginning Oct. 17.

In newsrooms across the country, Facebook’s instant video option might be changing the way we consume social media. Reporters need only a smartphone camera and Facebook account to capture live, unedited video that can be viewed on their personal or station’s pages and websites. Consider it the visual equivalent of listening to the police scanner. Above, Kristine Sorensen, host of KDKA’s Pittsburgh Today Live, points out items for the upcoming show as she does a Facebook Live intro before broadcasting starts. (Darrell Sapp photo)

Cox Media Group-owned WPXI holds a commanding lead among Pittsburgh local media outlets’ performance on social media, according to Shareablee data. Over the past six months, it claims the bounty of the market’s total social actions, dominating both Facebook and Twitter, and it has the city’s highest number of fans/followers.

Monday morning’s implosion of a Pittsburgh area 94-year-old bridge was the perfect TV news storm. The logistics of covering this blink-or-you’ll-miss-it event involved reporters and cameras from three stations in pretty much the same locations, but what viewers saw on TV and on the stations’ websites was surprisingly varied.

Just in time for the latest sweeps period, Pittsburgh’s WPXI (NBC) and KDKA (CBS) unveiled state-of-the-art sets on Monday. And what will the well-dressed newscasts be wearing this fall? In a word, screens. KDKA used Devlin Design for its new look, while WPXI turned to tech company Orad.

Atlanta, Boston, Seattle, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Charlotte and Dayton are the latest additions to the Katz Broadcasting network that debuts on April 15.

Longevity is a hallmark of many successful marriages, but increasingly rare in news anchor pairings. At Cox Media’s Pittsburgh NBC affiliate WPXI however, David Johnson and Peggy Finnegan have been a team for 25 years. Today, with one day to go in the current sweeps period, they are second in the market with the coveted 25-54 demo for the late-afternoon time period.