TV Q&A: Did Chris Hoffman leave KDKA-TV? Where’s WPXI’s Alby Oxenreiter?

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review.

Q: Just wondering why we haven’t seen Chris Hoffman on KDKA-TV for quite a while.

— Linda, via Facebook

Rob: Hoffman posted to social media that he’s on paternity leave following the birth of his son.

“I’m able to take [paternity leave] within one year of my son’s birth,” Hoffman said. “I took it once my wife’s leave was up. It worked out well so we can spend the holidays together. I’ll be back in January!”

Q: Has Alby Oxenreiter officially retired from Channel 11 or is he coming back?

— Tom, via email

Rob: No, he hasn’t retired. My understanding is Oxenreiter continues to rehab from a June heart valve replacement surgery. On Nov. 1 he tweeted about his recovery and it was mentioned on-air by David Johnson during a Steelers pre-game show on Channel 11.

“Continuing my recovery and excited for a HUGE Steelers night on Channel 11. Ready for some great interviews and analysis w/ Jenna, David, Jerome, Gordon, Dorin, Doug, Rich et al. Miss the crew but I’ll be watching!! #herewego,” Oxenreiter wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

No word on when Oxenreiter will return to the air on Channel 11.

Continuing my recovery and excited for a HUGE Steelers night on Channel 11. Ready for some great interviews and analysis w/ Jenna, David, Jerome, Gordon, Dorin, Doug, Rich et al. Miss the crew but I’ll be watching!! #herewego https://t.co/Zpbk4XqZMo

— Alby Oxenreiter (@albyox) November 2, 2023

Q: I still can’t figure out how NFL games are aired Sundays on CBS and FOX. Sometimes there are two games on either station but things change when the Steelers play. Can you explain how these games are arranged?

— Ken, Wexford

Rob: Sports on TV is not my area of expertise but my sense is the Steelers games are immaterial to whether CBS or Fox air two games on Sunday afternoon.

Pittsburgh Pop podcast host Tim Benz pointed me toward this NFL operations explainer, which states, “The season will open and close with doubleheaders on both CBS and Fox and every market will see four Sunday afternoon games in Weeks 1 and 18. Over Weeks 2-17, Fox and CBS will each have eight doubleheaders. In those weeks, one network will show games in both Sunday afternoon time slots, while the other will air only one game in either of the two time slots. Doubleheader weeks generally alternate between networks, but not always. It is possible for one network to have doubleheaders on consecutive weeks, but not three weeks in a row.”

There’s seemingly no rhyme or reason to it other than that’s the schedule the NFL drew up.

Q: Why do the networks keep the crowd noise so high when broadcasting sporting events? The announcers and analysts are over-paid and you can’t hear/understand anything that they say.

— Jed, Allison Park

Rob: Without going to the home of every person who complains about the sound coming from their TV, there’s no way for me to realistically diagnose this.

I’ve reported previously that difficulty distinguishing dialogue from background noise or music can have a number of causes including lousy speakers on a TV, the setting on a TV, hearing loss and sometimes an audio mix that simply doesn’t agree with some TV sets.

One of the recommendations I’ve heard to remedy this problem is a soundbar. I hadn’t tried one until recently, but when I found the ZVOX AccuVoice AV120 compact TV soundbar speaker reduced from $75 to $60 on Amazon, I decided to give it a try.

The Zvox purports to be “the best solution to hearing what people say on TV.” The truth is, I haven’t generally had a hard time understanding dialogue on TV so using the Zvox doesn’t sound that much different to my ears than my Fire TV’s speakers. But surely hearing varies by individual and sound varies by TV and at that price point it might be worth giving this soundbar or one like it a try if changing a TV’s sound settings doesn’t improve the situation.