News Choppers Go Down in the Burgh

Years ago, I worked at WPXI in Pittsburgh.

Not long after I started working there, WPXI obtained a news chopper and ran promo after promo about Chopper 11.

The news chopper was promoted more than the station’s talent.

But, after hedge fund Apollo bought Cox (who owned WPXI) the beginning of the end was near.

A couple of years ago, WPXI and CBS’s KDKA decided that they would share the same news chopper.

That left Hearst-owned WTAE as the only station with its own chopper.

Now, as 2024 gets started, WPXI and KDKA have decided to do away with their one chopper and WTAE is the only station in town with a news helicopter.

“We will be maintaining our chopper, and Sky4 will be the only active news-gathering helicopter in the market,” WTAE GM Charles Wolfertz III told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

It’s sad to see stations give up a news-gathering vehicle, but in these days and times, journalism takes a back seat to money at most TV stations.

It’s just another nail in the coffin of local TV news, and that’s really sad.