KDKA hires morning co-anchor

Wasting no time, KDKA-TV has hired a morning co-anchor to work alongside Jennifer Antkowiak during morning newscasts beginning Monday. Rick Dayton, formerly of WOWK in the Charleston-Huntington, W. Va. market, will start at the station next week.

Dayton, a Grove City native and graduate of The College of Wooster in Ohio, will follow in the footsteps of former KDKA morning anchor Keith Jones for the second time in his career: Dayton succeeded Jones as lead evening anchor at WOWK when Jones returned to Pittsburgh to work mornings at KDKA-TV in 2005

"I talked to Keith last week and told him it looked like I was following behind him and I wondered if he had any real estate to sell," Dayton said by phone this afternoon.

Dayton will anchor mornings newscasts on KDKA and WPCW and do some reporting for later newscasts. (For the time being, Stacy Smith will anchor the noon news solo; morning fill-in David Highfield will return to reporting and doing some anchor fill-in work.)

Prior to his work at WOWK, Dayton worked in radio sports with Capitol Broadcasting Company in Raleigh, N.C., calling hundreds of baseball and basketball games. For three years he was a broadcaster for the Carolina Hurricanes Television Network. He began in broadcasting as a high school student at WEDA-FM in Grove City.

Dayton said he knew Antkowiak from watching KDKA when he came back to Western Pennsylvania to visit his parents. They recently met and commiserated about their families -- Antkowiak has five kids; Dayton has three. He touted his "Hometown Advantage" bonafides.

"The fact that both of us are from Western Pennsylvania, we're people who understand what's important," he said. "I understand the Steelers are a news story as much as they are a sports story and a lot of people would not necessarily get that. We'll work very well together. I'm just really excited to get going on Monday."

Timing-wise the move works out well for Dayton: His contract with WOWK expired this month and was not renewed (the station opted for a single-anchor format).

"This gives me an opportunity to come home," Dayton said. "It's absolutely thrilling for us."

In the meantime, KDKA has begun the "Antkowiak returns!" promos. Glad to see the mottled blonde-black hair is gone but she looks a little like Kristine Sorensen in this one: