Retired KDKA-TV personality Jon Burnett dies

Former KDKA-TV weathercaster and daytime talk show host Jon Burnett died of suspected CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) following a 2022 diagnosis of the disease, according to KDKA.

He was 71.

Burnett shared his diagnosis with KDKA viewers in February 2024 reports by his longtime “Pittsburgh Today Live” co-host Kristine Sorensen, who Burnett referred to as his “TV wife.”

In February 2024, Burnett said he decided to go public “because my disease is so obvious, I couldn’t hide it anymore. I couldn’t not broadcast it to the world that there’s something wrong with me.”

Burnett and his wife, Debbie, said they wanted to shine a light on the Sports Brain Bank at the University of Pittsburgh, which does research on CTE through brains donated to science. Burnett signed onto the research study to have his brain donated to the cause after his death.

Sorensen said she is grateful that Burnett shared his story in February, but she wasn’t surprised.

“As he started to face a lot of neurological problems, it was still Jon,” she said. “He still cared about people, and he wanted to share his story to help other people and help improve research into what causes CTE. As a result of the stories we did, the number of sign-ups for the Brain Bank more than doubled.”

Burnett played defensive end for the University of Tennessee football team, graduating in 1976.

He got his start in TV news in his home state of Tennessee and moved to Pittsburgh in 1982 to host KDKA’s “Evening Magazine,” first with Liz Miles and later with Mary Robb Jackson.

Jackson recalled the final episode of “Evening Magazine” in which she and Burnett took off in a hot air balloon, a bookend to the program’s first episode where original hosts Dave Durian and Donna Hanover arrived via balloon.

“We made it as far as Millvale,” Jackson said with a laugh. “Jon really is a life to celebrate because even as Jon has gone through so much in recent times, he never lost his sweetness.”

She described work trips to Mexico and Prague and Burnett’s thirst for adventure.

“Jon is a party coming at you,” she said. “He loved to push the envelope. He was fearless. And he was never shy about saying how much he loved his family. He was always talking about them. He was so proud of his family.”

Burnett then joined Patrice King Brown as co-host of “Pittsburgh 2Day.” She referred to Burnett as “my TV brother.”

“I loved him, and our whole crew loved working with Jon,” King Brown said by phone from her home near Los Angeles. “He was flexible, courteous; he was a gentleman.”

King Brown recalled Burnett insisting on walking her to her car at night.

She also remembers some schoolboy-like antics, including the time zookeeper Jack Hanna brought giant cockroaches from the Columbus Zoo to be on the daytime show.

“He and Jon decided to tell our staff that one was missing,” King Brown recalled. “Of course, you know what kind of flurry that created. Fortunately, it wasn’t true, but people hopped up on their chairs.”

King Brown, who last visited Burnett in December 2023 with her former co-anchor, Stacy Smith, said she used to tease Burnett “in the most loving way” that if something came into his head, it was next coming out of his mouth.

“I’d say, ‘Oh, JB, you can’t say that!’ and sometimes this would happen and a couple guests would get angry with him. But he was transparent, which was a gift on that show because he was definitely thinking what people at home were thinking and he’d say it in the way they would have said it, given the opportunity,” King Brown said.

Retired KDKA anchor/reporter Brenda Waters recalled the time she read a news story about a local man who died and wanted to be buried in his Corvette or in a Corvette-shaped urn. The cemetery had agreed to the car’s burial but was waiting on a sign-off from the EPA.

“I just threw it to the weather, and I didn’t dare look at Jon and the next thing out of Jon’s mouth — let’s pretend the (deceased’s) wife’s name was Patty — and Jon says, ‘C’mon, Patty. Put him in the bottle and keep the car!’ ” Waters recalled. “And I’m like, ‘Oh my God. OK, what’s gonna happen?’ And the phones did light up. Things like that happened all the time with Jon. You didn’t know what he would say or do. He was that fun guy and 100% natural all the time.”

When both of Burnett’s daytime shows ended in the early 1990s, Burnett moved into KDKA’s weather department, providing forecasts for 28 years, often on weekend mornings alongside Waters, until he retired in 2019.

Initially, Burnett appeared with Waters and Ron Klink on evening newscasts.

“Jon and Ron and I would hang out after the show and just talk until maybe 2 in the morning,” Waters said. “Jon is that family member who always brings that passionate energy to a family reunion. He never changes. I’ve seen him upset but I’ve never seen him angry and it’s over in a flash. He was a constant and what you saw on TV is who he really is.”

Burnett maintained his weekend weather role and returned to daytime when he co-hosted “Pittsburgh Today Live” three days a week from 2006 to 2017 with Sorensen.

Sorensen praised Burnett as “a natural” when it came to hosting, utilizing his college theater training.

“I really appreciated his expertise. That was a help to me,” she said of the early days of “PTL.” “He was the yin to my yang. He is so spontaneous and fun-loving. I’m much more organized; I like structure and control. He would ask the questions I might be hesitant to ask, and he’d ask them anyway. Someone had to keep the show on the rails, so I was there for that, but it really made us a great team.”

Sorensen recalled the pair racing Big Wheels and getting covered with soda from a Carnegie Science Center experiment that went awry. And she recalled Burnett’s willingness to eat anything offered to the hosts of “PTL,” including chocolate-covered insects.

“If you said, ‘Don’t eat it,’ then he would definitely eat it,” she said, chuckling. “But he was also very emotional, which I loved. Jon was not afraid to show his emotions. People watching television appreciated that he was so genuine.”

John Poister, news director of WPGH-TV in the early 2000s and the current afternoon drive news anchor on WHJB-FM (107.1), said, at one point, he tried to hire Burnett as a forecaster at Channel 53. Burnett ultimately renewed his contract with KDKA, but Poister said he and Burnett struck up a friendship.

“Every now and then we’d chat and gossip and he was always a good guy with me,” Poister said, noting he was especially impressed with Burnett’s versatility as a utility player, something that’s been lost in local TV over the years.

“Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s there were always a few guys and even some women who may not have had one particular job but several,” Poister said, pointing to Bill Cardille, who played a character on a kids’ show while also serving as a booth announcer and later as host of “Chiller Theater” and a weather forecaster.

Similarly, Burnett proved to be a versatile broadcaster as evidenced by his moves from “Evening Magazine” to subsequent daytime chat shows and later segueing into a forecaster role.

“He was somebody who they knew they could put in any situation,” Poister said. “There’s nobody doing it now in TV. He was the last guy in Pittsburgh who was able to cross all those streets and do all those things.”

To register for the National Sports Brain Bank study, visit https://redcap.link/nsbb, email to nsbb@pitt.edu or call 412-692-2700 (8 a.m.-4 p.m.).