Here are the big Philly media personalities who retired in 2022

Philadelphians have a noted love for their local media personalities, whether we’re talking meteorologists, news anchors, or radio hosts. And when they retire, we’re sad to see them go.

But 2022 was a real doozy for the Philadelphia media landscape. And not just because of Jim Gardner.

This year, we’ve seen a half-dozen big names in local TV and radio call it a career — or at least step back from their roles significantly. Here’s who decided to hang it up in 2022:

Retirement has been a long time coming for Jim Gardner. After more than four decades at 6ABC, the Philly TV news favorite announced in November 2021 his impending retirement, saying that his final day with the station would come at the end of 2022.

But at least it wasn’t sudden. Gardner started his journey into retirement by stepping away from the 11 p.m. edition of Action News in January, ceding the spot to reporter and anchor Rick Williams.

“It’s been a long run, and it’s the first step toward retirement,” Gardner told The Inquirer earlier this year. “I hope we’ve done a good job with the 11 o’clock news over a period of almost 45 years. I think we have.”

Gardner has continued to anchor the station’s 6 p.m. newscast — a role that he’ll give up Wednesday (Brian Taff will take over). Gardner modeled his exit on the retirement of 6ABC meteorologist Dave Roberts, who retired in 2009 by ending his run at the station with a focus on the 6 p.m. broadcast.

“It worked out well for him, I think it worked out well for the station, and I’m sure it’ll work out well for everyone this time around,” Gardner told The Inquirer.

» READ MORE: As Jim Gardner retires, he reflects on 46 years at Action News

As for what’s next for Gardner, it looks like a little leisure is coming his way.

“I look forward, for instance, to being able to watch a Sixers game on television with my wife, or, my goodness — to even go to a game on a weeknight. Or maybe even linger over dinner, or doze off reading a book before 2 in the morning,” he told viewers last year. “It is a lifestyle I haven’t experienced in 45 years, and it’s time.”

We don’t know exactly when longtime 94.1 WIP host Angelo Cataldi will be stepping away from the mic — but we do know the end is nigh.

Cataldi, who joined WIP in 1989, announced his retirement in October 2021, saying that his final day at the station would be in December this year. But now, his last day depends on how far the Eagles’ season goes. So, if the Birds make it to the Super Bowl, we could have Cataldi on the air through February.

We finally know who his replacement is. Once Cataldi takes his leave , Joe DeCamara and former Eagles fullback Jon Ritchie will take his slot.

Cataldi was initially supposed to retire at the end of 2021 but accepted a company option last year to continue on. As he told The Inquirer in 2019, he’s considered calling it quits a number of times, and would have already retired if it weren’t for former colleague Marc Farzetta’s launching a competing program at 97.5 The Fanatic.

“I think it’s safe to say I would have retired by now if he had stayed,” Cataldi told The Inquirer. “Whether or not he would have gotten the opportunity, it wasn’t my say. But I kind of groomed him for 13 years. So when he left, it was like, ‘That plan isn’t going to work.’”

Lucky for us, longtime WHYY personality Marty Moss-Coane is only semi-retiring from audience favorite Radio Times, which aired its last episode with Moss-Coane as host in November.

“I will miss all of that but also know that I need to get off the grind of a daily show while I still have some energy and brain cells left so I can pursue new challenges at WHYY and in my private life,” she said in a September statement announcing her departure.

With the end of her tenure on Radio Times, Moss-Coane wrapped a 35-year run. Next month, she’ll return to the WHYY airwaves with a new program called The Connection with Marty Moss-Coane.

That hour-long show will run weekly. According to WHYY, the program will feature “interviews about the connections and complications that make us human and what it takes to live a life of purpose and meaning.”

Meteorologist and former resident bowtie maven Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz capped his 27-year career at the station in May. All told, Schwartz spent 42 years in the TV business and has been forecasting weather for about 50 years.

“Working for NBC10 has been the crowning achievement of my professional life, and I’ll always be grateful beyond words to my work ‘family’ with whom I’ve shared so much,” Schwartz wrote in a statement.

Schwartz joined NBC10 in 1995 after stints at stations including WAGA-TV in Atlanta, the Weather Channel, and WNYW-TV in New York — that last one being where earned his “Hurricane” nickname. In 2002, Schwartz became NBC10′s chief meteorologist, and handed off that role to Tammie Souza in 2017.

But we haven’t seen the last of him.

“I’m not retiring from meteorology, my life-long passion, but only from daily TV on NBC10,” Schwartz’s statement read. “I’ve decided: If I’m gonna try some new things and pursue other things I’ve put off, there’s no time like the present!”

Ray Didinger — also known as “The Godfather” of Philly sports — hung up his headphones in May after 53 years, retiring from NBC Sports Philadelphia and 94.1 WIP.

“I loved the people I worked with, and I’m proud of what we built. But I feel it’s time to go,” Didinger told listeners when he announced his retirement. “I’m healthy, I’m happy, but I’m also 75 years old. It’s time, really. It’s that simple.”

Didinger’s retirement capped an epic career that began in newspapers in 1969, an industry in which he worked for three decades as a writer at the Philadelphia Bulletin and Philadelphia Daily News. In the 1990s, he moved over to NFL Films, and later Comcast SportsNet. With such a long career, Didinger is believed to be the only journalist who covered the Flyers’ first Stanley Cup, the Phillies’ first World Series win, and the Eagles’ first Super Bowl appearance, The Inquirer reported earlier this year.

“I’d like [fans] to think that I was honest,” Didinger said in a WIP broadcast in May. “And even if they didn’t agree with my opinion, or whatever I happened to say on a given day, that they respected the fact it was an honest opinion.”

Veteran TV newsman Dann Cuellar retired from 6ABC after 34 years at Action News in May. Cuellar announced his retirement on Facebook, writing that “the time has come to move on.”

“It’s a source of great pride to have been invited into your homes to report the news over the last three decades,” Cuellar wrote. “I don’t think I could ever fully capture what an honor it has been.”

Cuellar joined the staff in 1988 and covered many big stories, including the Oklahoma City bombing, Waco, the Columbine school shooting, and 9/11. He also traveled internationally, reporting on wars in Bosnia, Iraq, and Kuwait.

And he got to have some fun, too. His annual Thanksgiving Eve preview of the 6ABC Thanksgiving Day Parade, for example, became known as the station’s “ExtravaDannZa.”

When he announced his retirement, Cuellar said that he’d like to write books, teach journalism at a local university, and do charity work.

“But right now I want to say, thank you for watching over the decades and giving me the opportunity to spend some time together and share so many events of our times,” Cuellar wrote. “It’s been an honor and a pleasure.”