Fox4's Good Day -- vacancy or no vacancy?
04/13/09 12:53 PM
By ED BARK
It's been six weeks since Megan Henderson left Fox4's Good Day for KTLA-TV in Los Angeles.
Henderson's Feb. 27th departure, via a four-hour "Mega Megan Celebration," underscored her importance to the station's biggest moneymaker. But in a continuing dismal economy, is Fox4 content to pair incumbent anchor Tim Ryan with a rotating trio of in-house replacements? Or is the station just marking time before bringing in a newcomer and launching a companion promotional campaign?
Fox4 management has a firm "no comment" policy on personnel matters. And so far nothing has leaked out. The on-air evidence otherwise is readily available. Station veteran Dan Godwin again sat next to Ryan on Monday, as he did on the first Monday after Henderson's exit. Fox4 staffers Natalie Solis and Krystle Gutierrez also have pulled Good Day co-anchor duty.
But has Fox4 paid much of a price in the early morning Nielsen ratings? Yes and no.
In the one-time only March "sweeps," the 7 to 9 a.m. portion of Good Day again beat the three network morning shows in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. It also did so in the November sweeps ratings period.
From 6 to 7 a.m. in March, Fox4 and an onrushing NBC5 tied for first in the total viewer Nielsens. But the Peacock knocked Good Day into second place among 25-to-54-year-olds. In the November sweeps, Fox4 comfortably took the gold in both measurements.
NBC5's rally started earlier this year, though, predating Henderson's departure. So it's an open question whether Fox4 would have stayed on top in March with Ryan-Henderson still at the Good Day throttle.
Can Fox4 keep rotating its co-anchors though? Is the basic content and format of Good Day enough to carry the day, no matter who's sitting next to Ryan? Is he the real glue, and the others just post-its? And if Fox4 decided on Godwin as a permanent replacement, could it get away with four white males comprising Good Day's A-Team?
NBC5 still seems to be in best early morning position with a veteran, likable anchor duo of Brendan Higgins and Deborah Ferguson.
Third-place WFAA8 is hoping viewers eventually will warm to its latest new male anchor, Chris Flanagan. And perennial doormat CBS11 has been slowly moving closer to third place with a Scott Sams/Ginger Allen anchor tandem that now ranks second in early morning seniority.
What Fox4 does -- or doesn't do -- remains the biggest unanswered question. Can the merry-go-round anchor system work in the long term? Are either Godwin, Solis or Gutierrez strong enough to step in permanently? Or do Ryan and Good Day need another new pretty face sitting next to him?
I'd still bet on the latter. But in these times maybe there's no real hurry.