With more than 25 years of professional, on-camera experience, Pete is an established multimedia personality. Learn more about his career in TV and digital media.
“I would rather entertain people and hope that they learned something than educate people and hope that they were entertained.” – Walt Disney
Pete Scalia has been living by those words, waking up with morning TV viewers for more than 15 years. Here’s a look at his journey.
Pete’s on-camera career “began” when he was about four years old. His parents took him to do a screen test for an agency in Chicago — he ended up in a McDonald’s commercial. That was his first time in front of the camera.
Years later, in college, Pete studied audio and video production at Ohio University. Even though he was studying the behind-the-scenes aspects of music and video production, he found himself in front of the camera, in numerous student-run productions.
After college, while still playing music and working various odd jobs to pay the bills, Pete enlisted the help of a local talent agency in Cincinnati. He started booking regular on-camera spokesperson gigs for a variety of corporate and commercial clients, including Procter & Gamble, Kroger, Chi-Chi’s Restaurants, GE Capital, REX Appliance Stores and more.
He got his first “broadcasting” job working behind the scenes at WLWT as a production assistant, in the iconic Crosley Square Building (not long after a certain news anchor named Jerry Springer had moved his daytime talk show to Chicago… )
In 1999, he teamed up with some college friends at the Telecommunications Board of Northern Kentucky to help create and co-host a live, weekly show called “City Nights” that featured live local, regional and national touring musical acts. (The show is still running today – Pete went back to celebrate the 20th Anniversary!) He served as co-host of City Nights for about five years. He used that time – working for free – along with his paying on-camera gigs to hone his craft, and learn skills like reading a teleprompter and working in front of a key wall or “green screen.”
Pete sent out numerous audition tapes and cover letters, but aside from an on-camera audition at VH1 in New York City, the offers were slim to none. With a stack of rejection letters from entertainment companies, television stations and talent agencies stacking up, he looked elsewhere.
It wasn’t long before the road came calling, and Pete set out playing keyboards and singing with Cincinnati funk artist Freekbass. After returning home from an ill-fated tour out west, Pete saw an ad for open auditions to become the new traffic reporter at WLWT. A few hundred people showed up one Saturday morning to do a 30-second audition, in front of a green screen, for station management. The assistant news director at the time remember Pete from his production gig at the station ten years earlier. After making the first few cuts (and some behind-the-scenes interviews), he got the job.
From there, the rest, as they say, is history. Pete had a successful run as traffic, feature and spot news reporter (from the station helicopter). He did weekly segments for the station, like “Tech Tuesday” and anchored the station’s daily online “Fastcast.” Pete would often have “guest traffic reporters” on the show – including former Mayor Mark Mallory, the Cincinnati Reds Mascots, and a blogging marathon runner named Amy Storer (who also happened to be his girlfriend at the time). A year later, when Amy came back on the show to promote her new online publication Cincy Chic, Pete surprised her with a marriage proposal on live television.
After a few years at WLWT, Pete got an email from former WXIX-TV news director Pat Casey. Pat was working as news director of WKEF and WRGT in Dayton, Ohio, but still lived in the Cincinnati area. Pat told Pete he thought he had potential to move beyond his role at WLWT, and offered him his first morning anchor gig – a four-hour show on ABC 22 and FOX 45 in Dayton.
Pete and Amy had just bought their first home in Fort Thomas, Kentucky – and the Great Recession of 2008 had just hit – so for the next three and a half years, Pete commuted daily – 60 miles each way – from Fort Thomas to Dayton.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW PETE’S VIDEO CLIPS ON VIMEO AND YOUTUBE!
Pete grew into his position at ABC 22 Good Morning and FOX 45 in the Morning. His first big interview was with legendary television host (and Dayton native) Phil Donahue. He hosted regular, weekly segments like “Idol Chat” and a “Dancing with the Stars” recap. He also did a regular “Cool Schools” segment, showcasing fun, educational things happening at local schools.
The show also featured weekly cooking segments and occasional celebrity interviews. A few memorable ones included Pauly Shore (the one person Pete has interviewed more times than anyone else), comedian Tom Wilson (Back to the Future), actor John Witherspoon (Friday), and countless others. Another memorable interview was with Dayton native and the voice of “Bart Simpson,” Nancy Cartwright. At the end of the show, Nancy had heard that Pete had experience as a voice actor, and did a great “Homer Simpson” impression – so they did the weather forecast together, Pete in Homer’s voice and Nancy as Bart. The two hit it off, which led to Pete doing multiple live performances with Nancy, and a cherished friendship.
Pat Casey was an incredible source of encouragement and inspiration for Pete during his time in Dayton, once telling him “you could write your own ticket in this business if you work for it!” After battling glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, Pat Casey died in March of 2011. Pete will always remember Pat as a mentor, a friend, and “the man who changed my life.”
Later that summer, Pete had the opportunity to fill-in anchor at sister stations WSYX-TV (ABC6) and WTTE-TV (FOX 28) in Columbus, Ohio. Later that year, he was hired as morning anchor at both stations.
Pete co-anchored the newly named “Good Day Columbus” from August 2011 until September 2016. Alongside co-anchor Carolyn Bruck, Pete and the GDC team made notable ratings gains in the Columbus market, which had previously been dominated by legacy station WBNS-TV. During his time at Good Day, Pete interviewed various public officials, up-and-coming artists, musicians, fashion designers, supermodels, and more.
Pete with Courtney Khondabi 
Pete singing live on GDC with X factor star Josh Krajcik 
Pete and Amy with Lola after announcing they were pregnant with baby #2 on GDC 
Pete and the GDC team – Carolyn Bruck, Dana Turtle, Katie Garner, Shawn Ireland, Marshall McPeek and Mike Kilburn
It was during his time at GDC that Pete and his wife Amy (who also did popular “Queen of Chic” segments on the show) tried to start a family. Unfortunately, that meant Pete had to go off of his “toxic” cocktail of treatments and medications for rheumatoid arthritis. Pete and Amy were very open and public about their struggles to conceive, and Pete’s noticeable weight gain from taking increasingly large doses of the steroid prednisone was hard to hide from viewers.
During one of Amy’s segments on the show, on January 17, 2014, Pete and Amy announced they were pregnant on live television – with Pete checking in from home while recovering from bilateral hip replacement surgery. Sharing their journey to parenthood on Good Day Columbus and on social media endeared the couple to viewers in Central Ohio.
Additional surgeries (and more children) were to follow – but so was ratings success. In 2016, Pete was hired “across the street” to co-anchor “10 This Morning” on WBNS-TV 10TV.
Always look for reasons to laugh 
Rev. Jesse Jackson 
Promo shoot with the 10 This Morning team 
Heavyweight boxing champ Buster Douglas 
Official 10 this Morning Billboard 2019
Honored to work with trusted, seasoned journalists every day, Pete enjoys helping viewers in Central Ohio start their day with the information they need, while hopefully making them smile along the way.
Want to see more? Click here to check out Pete’s video clips on Vimeo!