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Ladies Move to the Frontlines

For some reason, TV news mangers think that the news should be delivered by both a male and a female Anchor. 

Maybe it was the TV consultants that said that this is the trend that must be followed, but it seems more and more stations are ditching the guy and handing it off to the woman. 

Especially in South Florida. 

The Sun Sentinel reports that three of the major English-language broadcast stations in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market have gone to all-female anchor teams in the morning.

In April, WTVJ-Ch. 6 paired Roxanne Vargas with Sheli Muñiz for the 4:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. newscasts. WSVN-Ch. 7 has three main anchors — Diana Diaz, Christine Cruz and Alex de Armas, who rotate on the anchor desk from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. And WFOR-Ch. 4 has been experimenting with pairing morning anchor Lauren Pastrana with Marybel Rodriguez and Bianca Peters after Eugene Ramirez left earlier this year.

WPLG-Ch. 10 continues with the traditional male-and-female format in the mornings, with Eric Yutzy and Jacey Birch.

This trend could happen in more places than just South Florida. 

A number of News Directors tell FTVLive that finding "qualified" male Anchors is getting harder and harder. "Female Anchors are a dime a dozen, finding a good male is really tough," said one News Director to FTVLive. 

Just look at J-School and you will see why there are more women to choose from. 

“For a number of years, there have been more women than men going into television journalism, and I think part of what we are seeing is the result of that,” said Scott Libin, chairman of the Radio Television Digital News Association. “I don’t think it’s unique to Miami. It might be more pronounced there.”

Libin, former news director at the CBS and ABC affiliates in Minnesota, said that among his college communications students, women outnumber male students “two to one, sometimes three to one.” It’s a similar picture at Florida International University, where 75 percent of the journalism students are women, according to the school.

One News Manager tells FTVLive that he thinks that many men are shunning TV news because the pay is so low to start out that it's just not worth it for them.  But, why isn't it the same for women, FTVLive asked the news manager? 

"Because, a lot of women still like the fact on 'being on TV'", the manager said. 

Not sure that FTVLive buys that, but there is no question that the pool of females on air is much deeper that the men. 


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