Johnathon O’Halloran, the 28-year-old morning anchor at NBC affiliate WJAC-TV, used an Instagram post on Monday, September 14, 2026, to tell viewers that the next morning’s edition of “6 News at Sunrise” would be his last at the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, station, closing out a run of more than two years behind the desk.
“It’s bittersweet to say that tomorrow, Tuesday, will be my final day at WJAC. Over the last two years and some months, I’ve been honored to sit at the desk for a station with such a rich history and to get to know so many wonderful people across this ten-county community,” he wrote on Instagram.
“To everyone at home, thank you for trusting me to be a part of your day and to keep you informed about the stories that matter most,” he continued. “It’s a responsibility I’ve never taken lightly, and I’m incredibly grateful for the memories and experiences I’ve made here.”
“I’m excited for what’s next, but for now, I hope you’ll join me one more time Tuesday morning on 6 News at Sunrise,” he added, signing off with, “Thank you for everything.” A next employer went unnamed, though he promised details shortly, writing September 16, “While I’m excited for what’s next, and I’ll have more on that in the coming days,” before adding: “Please know this area will forever have a special place in my heart, and no matter where I go, I’ll always be rooting for the amazing people of these ten counties I’ve had the privilege of calling home.”
The broadcast itself got its own note. “My final send off this morning on 6 News at Sunrise,” he wrote in a post quoted September 16, and he went on: “For the last two years and some months, I’ve had the absolute honor of sitting at the anchor desk at WJAC. And while there are so many people to thank, the most important thanks goes to you at home.”
Two Years at the Sunrise Desk
WJAC hired O’Halloran in June 2024, and he grew into one of the familiar faces on the station’s early-morning newscast. That program reaches viewers across a 10-county stretch of west-central Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney among them. “Today marks two years for me at WJAC! Crazy how time flies!” he posted in June. Looking back on that arrival, he wrote: “I came here in June of 2024 without knowing a soul, and you immediately accepted me into your community. I’ll always be grateful for that. I’ve come to meet so many of you, who were always so kind.” His last shift in the studio came Tuesday, September 15, the morning after the farewell post went up.
From Woodbridge to the Anchor Desk
A Woodbridge, New Jersey, kid, he collected a bachelor’s degree in communications and digital media from Xavier University in Cincinnati in 2020. Two mascot suits, D’Artagnan the Musketeer and the Blue Blob, belonged to him for four of those years. Radio came before television: he worked as a producer and a fill-in sports talk host.
New York City came before Johnstown, where he was an assignment editor at WPIX. His station biography lists the assignments that job brought him: Donald Trump’s civil fraud and hush money cases, the arrest of an alleged Long Island serial killer, the 2022 Twin Parks apartment fire in the Bronx and the 2022 Sunset Park subway attack. That same biography names one specific Emmy.
He took a New York Emmy Award in 2023 for producing an in-depth piece on an alleged cancer cluster at Colonia High School in New Jersey. More than 100 former students and staff reported brain tumors, which drew national attention to the story and prompted state environmental and health testing of the school grounds in 2022; those tests found no radiological hazards. Woodbridge Township, where O’Halloran grew up, contains Colonia. Judges handed him a regional New York Emmy, not one of the national primetime or news and documentary Emmys.
A Second Job in New York Radio
O’Halloran’s workload extended well past Pennsylvania mornings. He has continued to anchor news for WOR 710 and iHeartRadio in New York, and that dual role shuttled him between a small-market television desk and a big-city radio newsroom.
Special coverage marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks was an assignment he called an honor, noting that he grew up close to New York City and that the events of that day rank among his earliest memories. Luigi Mangione’s case also drew him back: by his own account on social media earlier this year, he reported from New York on a pretrial hearing at which a judge ruled certain evidence out of the trial to come.
What the Exit Leaves Behind
The on-air roster at WJAC, a Sinclair Inc. station, still includes morning anchor Valory Myers, chief meteorologist Caitlin Westerholm and news anchors Sean Eiler and Jen Johnson, plus meteorologists, multimedia journalists and a Centre County reporter.
In a market the size of Johnstown, the departure of a young anchor lands hard. Smaller-market morning newscasts are typically where journalists assemble the reel that lands them a bigger job. O’Halloran had run two tracks at once — local television in Pennsylvania, radio news in New York — and that arrangement already put him in front of national stories while he was still reading local headlines at dawn.
Congratulations piled up in the comments under the farewell post. “I’m so proud of you, my friend!” one viewer wrote. Two more, reported September 16, read, “Wow! Excited for you!” and “Congrats!!!!” One Facebook commenter sounded wistful, saying it was sad to watch him leave and wishing the area could keep hold of its young talent, though the commenter conceded that chasing a bigger career made sense. Those reactions capture what the announcement carries on both edges: a send-off for the anchor, and one more empty chair at a small-market morning desk.