Just as they did when Channel 4 executives named Elena LaQuatra to succeed Michelle Wright as a morning news anchor, WTAE will again promote from within to fill LaQuatra’s traffic reporter role, naming Lily Coleman to the position.
Coleman has been filling in for several weeks, but this morning was the official start of her new schedule, offering traffic reports 4:30-7 a.m. and anchoring the noon newscast.
Coleman previously anchored weekend mornings and reported weekday mornings three days each week. Channel 4 will soon begin a search to find Coleman’s weekend morning anchor replacement as familiar faces fill in on an interim basis. Weekday mornings, Carlos Cristian Flores has worked the morning reporter shift all five days, while Coleman has been doing traffic in recent weeks.
“I am used to the early hours, and I actually prefer them because I have a 2-year-old, so it makes life a little easier,” Coleman said. “It’s definitely less sleep, but you don’t get much sleep with a toddler anyway.”
Coleman described her new roles as “the best of both worlds,” reporting breaking traffic news and anchoring.
“There are the major construction projects and the major closures of the Parkway East coming, which are very important, but it also still gives you that sense of breaking news when we have days like yesterday, when trucks are stuck and major thoroughfares are closed and people still need to figure out how theyre going to get around it,” Coleman said in a phone interview Friday.
Coleman said she expects to do more transportation stories in addition to her in-studio work.
Coleman joined WTAE in October 2022 after almost four years at WOWK-TV in Charleston, W. Va., where she worked assorted shifts and roles, including morning news anchor.
A Johnstown native whose mother grew up in Pittsburgh, Coleman said she’s lucky to have her grandparents living 10 minutes from her home. She does not see Pittsburgh as a stepping-stone market.
“I just really wanted to get back to Pittsburgh,” Coleman said. “My husband’s from Ligonier, and his family’s still there. My parents are in Johnstown. We have our daughter. We’re Yinzers for life. We’re not going anywhere.”
New Sebak show
It’s been a minute since we’ve gotten an original Rick Sebak special on WQED-TV, but a new one debuts tonight at 9 p.m. Somewhat confusingly, it’s airing under the same “Lucky to Live in Pittsburgh” title used on Sebak’s recent compilation TV specials made up of previously released YouTube shorts. But tonight’s program is all-new, not a compilation of previously released material.
The half-hour program, which will also air on other regional PBS stations as part of the America 250 celebration this year, ties together stories of lesser-known American Founding Father Albert Gallatin, General Lafayette, the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Newfoundland dog breed.
The episode will re-air at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and stream at WQED’s online outlets.
WQED adds mysteries
WQED will add two new scripted series to its prime-time TV lineup on Saturdays beginning April 11 at 8 p.m. with 2012-15 Australian import “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries,” which follows detective Phryne Fisher (Essie Davis) as she solves crimes in 1920s Melbourne.
At 9 p.m., “Brokenwood Mysteries” explores the cases faced by country music-loving detective inspector Mike Shepherd (Neill Rea) in a quiet New Zealand town where he’s paired with by-the-book Kristin Sims (Fern Sutherland).
Canceled
Disney series “Wizards of Waverly Place” will return for a third and final season this summer.
Amazon’s Prime Video canceled “The Runarounds” after one season.
Channel surfing
Pittsburgher Maggie Faucher competes tonight on “Jeopardy!” (7:30 p.m., WPXI). … Late last week, Amazon’s Prime Video announced two bonus episodes of “Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat,” a season two cast reunion special moderated by season one star James Marsden, debuting April 10. … The six-episode sixth season of “The Chosen” will debut on Prime Video Nov. 15. … Author Tom Wolfe’s ‘80s New York satire “The Bonfire of the Vanities” is being adapted as an Apple TV series by writer David E. Kelley (“Presumed Innocent,” “Picket Fences”). … The Writers Guild of America, representing film and TV scriptwriters, reached a tentative agreement for a new four-year contract with Hollywood producers, likely averting a rerun of the 2023, 148-day WGA strike.