KDKA GM retiring, replacement named

Chris Cotugno, the general manager for CBS Stations‘ Pittsburgh properties will retire in April 2025 and the group has also announced his replacement.

Cotugno has been with KDKA since 2002, moving from advertising sales director to general manager in 2019. He also oversees WPKD, the independent station owned by CBS that is known as KDKA+.

Replacing Cotugno will be Julie Eisenman, who will join the Pittsburgh operations April 7, 2025. She comes from the other side of the state where she has been president and general manager at WNEP in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

A Western Pennsylvania native, Eisenman worked at Pittsburgh NBC affiliate WPXI previously. She’s also been news director at WICU in Erie, Pennsylvania, WJCL in Savannah, Georgia, and WLTX in Columbia, South Carolina. She has been at WNEP, an ABC affiliate owned by Tegna, since 2021.

According to an interview with TribLive, Cotugno, 60, is exiting by choice as part of a larger life plan and so he can spend more time with his family, including his first grandchild, who was born in 2024.

During his tenure, the KDKA newsroom began producing a new 7:30 p.m. newscast and an 8 p.m. on KDKA+. The station also added an afternoon talk and lifestyle show, “Talk Pittsburgh,” and a weekend sports broadcast, according to TribLive.

He also helped transform WPKD from a CW affiliate to independent under the “plus” branding in 2023, which was part of a broader realignment of CBS-owned CW stations changing affiliations after the network was sold to Nexstar Media Group in 2023. WPKD, previously known as WPCW (among other calls), changed its signs to remove the “CW” reference after the sale.

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