NBC5 debuts D-FW's first three-headed early morning newscast
01/13/14 06:37 PM
Eric King and Marc Fein joined veteran holdover Deborah Ferguson Monday on NBC5’s revamped early morning newscast. Photo: Ed Bark
By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
If two heads are better than one, will three heads be better than two?
Fort Worth-based NBC5, after abruptly dropping co-anchor Mark Hayes last week, ushered in the market’s first early morning threesome Monday.
Technically, Marc Fein and longtime incumbent Deborah Ferguson are the anchors. But Eric King, who joined the station in March, got as much if not more face time as a roving studio personality who split his time narrating reports in front of a video wall and joining Fein and Ferguson at the desk. King and Ferguson also presided over an at times painful discourse on Golden Globes fashion plusses and minuses after Fein opted out.
King joined the program for the 5 to 7 a.m. segment, with Fein and Ferguson going it alone from 4:30 to 5 a.m. And he was far more than window dressing on his first official day.
At program’s end, the three of them were joined by meteorologist Grant Johnston and traffic reporter Remeisha Shade, who likewise is a meteorologist.
“This new big desk. Good thing,” Fein observed. “We needed all this space.”
NBC5 finished a close third to WFAA8 in the November “sweeps” early morning ratings, with Fox4 a dominant first.
Fein was shifted from co-anchor duties at 5 and 6 p.m., with no replacement named yet. Brian Curtis, who also co-anchors NBC5’s 4 and 10 p.m. newscasts, stayed the course Monday through the 5 and 6 p.m. editions as well. Station management has yet to answer repeated inquiries about any of this after first officially confirming last week that Hayes is “no longer with us.”
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