Ron Burgundy was right to worry, apparently.

From the Boston Globe via Romenesko:

In the television news industry, a good man is getting hard to find.

After dominating TV news for decades, male anchors are now in the minority nationwide, according to a study by the Radio-Television News Directors Association and Ball State University.

You don't have to decode statistics, though, to see the evidence. At the highest levels -- network news -- TV executives have had a hard time finding anchormen with star potential to replace Dan Rather and Peter Jennings. At CBS, Bob Schieffer has stayed far longer at ''CBS Evening News" than expected, while Katie Couric reportedly mulls a whopping offer to take the seat permanently. Where Jennings once reigned alone at ABC's ''World News Tonight," Elizabeth Vargas now shares anchor duties with Bob Woodruff...

The numbers of anchormen, which started declining 10 years ago and now are at an all-time low, have left station managers scratching their heads and college journalism professors pondering their enrollment. At Emerson College, there is just one man in the graduate broadcast journalism program. There are 20 female students.

''A lot of young men are encouraged to go into law and medicine, engineering and math," says Coleen Marren, WCVB's news director, who has noticed the trend...

According to the Radio-Television News Directors Association, a professional group that represents local and network news executives, the average annual salary for an anchor in a small market such as Bangor is about $20,000. ''It's a long haul," says Randy Price, WHDH-TV's (Channel 7) lead male anchor...

No one is suggesting that young women are happy with low salaries. But, some argue, women move up faster in the business.

''If you dress up the average woman coming out of college and put on makeup, she looks like an adult. The average man coming out of college looks like he's going through puberty," said Bob Papper, a professor of telecommunications at Ball State in Muncie, Ind., and the director of the RTNDA's annual study on television news.

''Sure, he'll get a job in a smaller market, but it will take longer for him to move forward, even if he puts on phony glasses," Papper says. ''A lot of young men aren't staying in the business that long. I think the real endangered species is the credible, middle-aged male anchor."...

Media Orchard begs to differ:

What do you mean the average young anchorman "looks like he's going through puberty"?

What do you mean there are no "credible" male anchors?

You obviously aren't watching our hero, Billy Bush.



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