William M. Burns (April 10, 1913 – September 16, 1997) was an American journalist and television news anchor. Burns anchored the news for over three decades (1953–1989) in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

for KDKA, which was the largest station in the market.

Career

Burns was a native of Houtzdale, PA. After serving in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, where he earned a

Purple Heart The Purple Heart (PH) is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those wounded or killed while serving, on or after 5 April 1917, with the U.S. military. With its forerunner, the Badge of Military Merit, w ...

medal, Burns came to Pittsburgh in 1946 to work for radio station

KQV KQV (1410 AM) is a non-commercial radio station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and covering the Greater Pittsburgh Region. Owned by Broadcast Educational Communications, the station simulcasts FM 88.1 WKGO in Murrysville and airs an easy liste ...

. He settled in Pittsburgh with his wife, and the couple subsequently had two children, Michael and Patti. He reported for KQV until 1953, when he went to work for what was then

WDTV WDTV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Weston, West Virginia, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for North-Central West Virginia. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Clarksburg-licensed dual Fox/ CW+ affiliate WVFX ...

, Channel 3. WDTV was originally identified as a

DuMont Television Network The DuMont Television Network (also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, simply DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being ...

affiliate but became a

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

affiliate and changed its call letters to KDKA and its frequency to Channel 2 in 1955. Burns was a familiar face to Pittsburghers; for much of the time he was at KDKA, he anchored the noon and 11 p.m. newscasts. Burns became a part of news history when in 1976, he began to share anchor duties with daughter and fellow journalist

Patti Burns Patricia Jeanne Burns (January 27, 1952 – October 31, 2001) was an American journalist and television news anchor. Burns was a familiar face to television audiences in Pittsburgh, where she worked for many years for KDKA-TV, a station for whic ...

, who had become an anchor in her own right. Their pairing, initially derided as "The Patti and Daddy Show" garnered high ratings. Burns anchored KDKA-TV's noon news continuously for over 35 years until he retired in 1989. For most of that time, he also anchored the station's 11 p.m. newscast, working a split 14-hour shift. Pittsburghers still recall his familiar sign-off from his late newscasts, wishing viewers a "Good night, good luck, and good news tomorrow." Among colleagues, Burns was beloved for his gruff sense of humor and admired for his near photographic recall of details of news stories and the arcania of Pennsylvania politics. It was Bill Burns who broke into KDKA's broadcast of ''

The Mike Douglas Show ''The Mike Douglas Show'' was an American daytime television talk show that was hosted by Mike Douglas. It began as a local program in Cleveland before being carried on other stations owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting. The show went into nati ...

'' around 1:40 p.m. on November 22, 1963 (KDKA pre-empted CBS' ''

As the World Turns ''As the World Turns'' (often abbreviated as ''ATWT'') is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS for 54 years from April 2, 1956, to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created ''As the World Turns'' as a sister show to her other soa ...

'' during that period) to report the shooting of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. He would remain on the air for several hours that day. Burns was noted for sometimes injecting his personal opinion into a news story, such as when the

Pittsburgh Penguins The Pittsburgh Penguins (colloquially known as the Pens) are a professional ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division of the Eastern Conference, and have playe ...

replaced their popular "skating penguin" logo with the "flying penguin" logo. (Burns would call the "flying penguin" logo a pigeon, though the team has since brought back the "skating penguin" logo.) He was also prone to making jokes and off-the-cuff comments; he once introduced the

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

that followed his newscast as "The Young and the Breastless". Burns died on September 16, 1997.

References

External links

Bill Burns on a list of Pittsburgh figures

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burns, Bill 1913 births 1997 deaths American television journalists Television personalities from Pittsburgh KDKA people Journalists from Pennsylvania American male journalists People from Clearfield County, Pennsylvania 20th-century American journalists