TV Talk: KDKA-TV hires weekend morning anchor; ABC cancels ‘The Rookie: Feds’

KDKA-TV has its new weekend morning anchor: Megan Shinn, currently an anchor at WRTV-TV, the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis, Ind., will take the position vacated by Briana Smith when Smith left for a reporter position in Philadelphia in May. Shinn will also report for morning KDKA/WPKD newscasts some weekdays.

Shinn, who was born in Iowa but grew up in Colorado, joined WRTV as a “Good Morning Indiana” anchor in 2020 and most recently anchored at noon, 5:30 and 7 p.m. She also led the station’s equity, diversity and inclusion committee.

Before Indianapolis, Shinn worked at TV stations in Norfolk, Va., and in Eugene, Ore. She earned a bachelor’s degree in television broadcast journalism from Chapman University in Southern California and interned at several Los Angeles TV stations.

Shinn met her husband, Mike, a Pittsburgh native, when she worked at WVEC-TV in Norfolk, Va.

“He’s an educator and he swept me off my feet and he said, ‘I’ll go wherever you go,’ so he came out here with me to Indianapolis and we got married out here, truly enjoyed the time and realized we wanted to be closer to family and the right opportunity with an iconic and wonderful station came up,” Shinn said. “(Anchoring and reporting), it’s the best of both worlds living close to family in Bethel Park. We even had a cookie table at our wedding, so we are true Pittsburghers.”

Although Shinn will leave a more traditional weekday work schedule, she said the choice to take a weekend anchor job, a shift she’s worked in the past, came down to wanting a work-life balance in closer proximity to family.

“We were in Pittsburgh for two different funerals in June unfortunately,” Shinn said. “Time is precious, and family means everything and being able to broadcast in this community that values news so much is really a privilege.”

Shinn, who will be moving to Pittsburgh with her two rescue cats (featured in “Catster” magazine earlier this year), starts at KDKA-TV on Dec. 18.

It’s been a busy week in local TV comings and goings. The announcement of Shinn’s hiring comes after Kasey Reigner posted to social media that she’s leaving her meteorologist role at WTAE-TV and news that KDKA-TV hired a new multimedia journalist, Mamie Bah.

In addition, the SAG-AFTRA strike ended and we got word that a scripted Hulu miniseries on the life of entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. will film in Pittsburgh next year.

It’s also a particularly busy time for the premieres of new series, including CBS’s “NCIS: Sydney,” Showtime’s “The Curse,” the return of Apple TV+’s “For All Mankind” and the debut of Hulu’s FX-produced “A Murder at the End of the World.”

Channel surfing

ABC canceled “The Rookie: Feds” after a single season and opted not to move forward with “The Good Doctor” spin-off “The Good Lawyer.” … CBS will air a six-episode, two-week holiday edition of “Big Brother.” “Big Brother Reindeer Games” (premieres 8 p.m. Dec. 11) features nine former “Big Brother” players competing in Christmas-themed challenges.