KDKA’s ‘warm hug’
‘Pittsburgh Today Live’ celebrates 20 years with a star-studded special
David Highfield sometimes arrives on the “Pittsburgh Today Live” set in a daze after co-anchoring “KDKA-TV Morning News.” Luckily for him, the best antidote for hard news coverage seems to be bantering with co-host Heather Abraham, interviewing guests and engaging in silly activities.
“When we walk in there and we start this hour, it just instantly puts me in a better mood,” Highfield told the PostGazette. “And I think it puts people at home in a better mood, too.”
Friday marked 20 years of “Pittsburgh Today Live” aiming to improve viewers’ moods five days a week with an hour of lighthearted revelry. The “PTL” team celebrated the occasion with a star-studded party on April 26 at the Pittsburgh Playhouse on Point Park University’s Downtown campus. Footage from the 90-minute event — which boasted a performance by Pittsburgh native Billy Porter — was cut down to about an hour for Friday’s “PTL” episode.
The Post-Gazette attended an April 19 taping at KDKA’s Downtown studio and caught up with Highfield, Abraham and others to discuss the show’s history, the nuts and bolts of creating daily TV, and why “PTL” remains a staple of so many Pittsburghers’ mornings.
“We get to be this little coffee shop at 9 a.m.,” said Krista Kelley, who executive produces both “PTL” and another KDKA lifestyle show, “Talk Pittsburgh.” “We’re the escape, the warm hug, the place where you get to hang out with people you enjoy.”
Good morning, Pittsburgh!
While the original “KDKA Morning Show” debuted on Sept. 15, 2003, the station relaunched it on May 10, 2004, as “Pittsburgh Today Live.” Jennifer Antkowiak hosted with support from meteorologist Rebecca Hower and executive producer Jill Neely. Kristine Sorensen took over full-time “PTL” hosting duties in 2006, with Jon Burnett serving as her co-host multiple days a week.
Sorensen and Burnett stayed with “PTL” for 11 years. In June 2017, KDKA officially installed Abraham as Sorensen’s permanent “PTL” replacement. The Shaler native joined KDKA as a morning reporter in 2010 and became a Channel 2 morning anchor five years later. She was always intrigued by all the shenanigans taking place in and around the “PTL” set.
“You would see the wildest things,” Abraham recalled. “Harlem Globetrotters, famous musicians, big groups of people coming in, some people in costumes. You would never know on any given day what would come into our green room.”
Highfield, a Ford City native who has been a KDKA Swiss army knife since 1991, became Abraham’s co-host two years later. These days, the show’s on-air team includes those two, meteorologist Ron Smiley and correspondents Mikey Hood, Daisy Jade and Katie O’Malley. Abraham also co-hosts “Talk Pittsburgh” with Hood and Kelly Dzanaj, while Boaz Frankel hits the field as that show’s main correspondent.
“PTL” is currently the only morning talk show across Pittsburgh’s big three
stations. An average of 57,000 households and 65,000 people ages 35-plus tune in daily, according to KDKA’s viewership data.
Channel 2 news director Shawn Hoder called “PTL” a “wonderful product” and said that any time he’s out with Highfield and Abraham, it’s clear that Pittsburghers “embrace them as part of their family and community.”
“It’s 20 years of delivering content that people want and that people welcome,” Hoder said. “That’s not an easy task in business and TV.”
A well-deserved break
The goal at “PTL” is to entertain and accurately inform Pittsburghers as they go about their morning routines. Abraham and Highfield realized just how entwined they were with many Western Pennsylvanians’ sense of normalcy when they kept hearing from folks who appreciated that “PTL” stayed on the air throughout the height of COVID-19-inducedlockdowns.
“We weren’t going to solve the world’s problems,” Abraham said. “But what we can do is, for an hour, kind of put some blinders up and say, there may be other things happening, but we’re going to tell you about the good that’s happening.”
Each “PTL” episode begins with a pretaped track declaring that “It’s time for a well-deserved break, Pittsburgh!” They generally start with Abraham and Highfield riffing on assorted topics, which Highfield said veteran KDKA anchor Ken Rice once told him “is some of the best television in Pittsburgh.”
The vast list of famous guests “PTL” has landed over the years includes Smokey Robinson, Ed Sheeran, The Clarks, Jeff Goldblum, Ted Danson and Gabby Barrett. Viewers who enjoy those regular celebrity appearances can thank Kelley, a former NBC Sports reporter who became the show’s executive producer following Neely’s 2021 retirement, and Teddy Stevenson, a Sewickley native and “PTL” producer who arrived at KDKA shortly after Kelley.
“No two days are the same,” Kelley said. “It is everything from you get off the phone trying to set up an interview with [former Steelers coach] Bill Cowher for the 20th [anniversary] show, and the next thing you know, Heather and David are eating strawberry pretzel salad and they don’t have forks, and I’m running to the kitchen to get forks.”
The April 19 taping featured a back-and-forth about cats, a viewer Q&A, an interview with comedian Cristela Alonzo, segments with Jade and O’Malley, and some Kennywood-themed cookie decorating with Gloriana Tenney of Gigi’s Cookie Co.
Hood, a Taylor Allderdice High School graduate who has been with KDKA since 2018, remembered flying a plane during one of her first “PTL” segments.
“We do everything on that show, from tasting all the new food at restaurants that just opened to spending time on farms petting various cattle,” she continued. “You name it, we do it!”
‘Something really special’
Stevenson and Kelley spend most of their time booking guests, planning and coordinating segments, writing and editing pieces, leading the control room during the show, and keeping Highfield and Abraham on track, plus any other miscellaneous task that comes their way. Kelley credited Stevenson for spearheading last month’ s 20th-anniversary celebration.
“You’re not ready for how many surprise guests you’re going to see in the show and how many pieces that have been fan favorites throughout the years,” Stevenson teased.
He found it “really heartwarming to see people from the community coming together to help us” execute such an ambitious event. Stevenson’s efforts paid off when more than 500 people purchased tickets to party with their favorite “PTL” personalities.
At this point, the show’s on-camera talent is used to feeling the love from Pittsburghers wherever they go. Hood became a mother last year and enjoys when Pittsburghers remind her that “we were with you when you were single, and you got married, and you had a baby!”
Highfield and his husband, Gary, are so ubiquitous that he was once approached at a Giant Eagle by someone who assumed he was there “because I saw Gary down by the cucumbers!”
“I never thought I would be on TV talking about my husband in Pittsburgh,” Highfield said. “It was just a different era whenever I started. It’s been so wonderful.”
Abraham credited “PTL” predecessors Antkowiak, Neely and Sorensen for laying groundwork so strong that their 20th-anniversary extravaganza sold out in about four hours.
“I think it just shows that we are one big community,” she said. “We do have one big family. We have created something really special.”