The vanishing anchorman

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

The numbers say as much: 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.

Locally, the picture is similar. Consider CBS4, which recently went back to the future and tapped veteran Jack Williams to be its lead male anchor again. Now 63, Williams was part of a high-powered anchor team with Liz Walker in the '80s and '90s. Since then, Joe Shortsleeve and Josh Binswanger both tried to fill his shoes, but the tenures for both were cut short.

At WCVB-TV (Channel 5), top male anchor Ed Harding is working an exhausting double shift -- the 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. newscasts -- after the station decided that Anthony Everett wasn't right for the late-night role. Everett, who continues to anchor the early evening newscasts, has instead taken over for the retired Peter Mehegan on ''Chronicle."

The ascent of women is a natural progression in the industry. The scarcity of men in the pipeline is another story.

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. ''I think young women see great opportunities in television. Just look at 'Entertainment Tonight,' 'Inside Edition,' 'Good Morning America.' There are strong females dominating those shows."

Marren said that although her stash of resumes from prospective males and females is the same size, the stronger candidates are women. That became a problem in 2003, when she began a 17-month nationwide search for a fresh male face to replace Everett at 11 p.m. ''We auditioned at least 10 people," Marren said.

In the end, Harding got the job. ''The best person was in-house," Marren said. ''We did a thorough search."

CBS4 maintains that it hasn't noticed the industry trend and that its selection of Williams for the top job had nothing to do with a shortage of choices.

''We had an anchor in the building who is a great journalist," said Angie Kucharski, vice president and station manager.

Yet experts say young men are backing off from the low-pay scale that awaits them upon graduation. Typically, neophytes start in small towns like Bangor, Maine, or Wilmington, N.C. They work as reporters first and then, sometimes, become anchors before moving on to bigger markets where the process is repeated.

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. ''I started in Bakersfield, Calif., then I felt like I really arrived when I got to Toledo, Ohio. Yes, you can end up in a place like Boston and have a certain amount of success, but how long does that take? I'm 55. Jack Williams is over 60. I think young men today are less tolerant of living in Great Falls, Mont., when there are so many other professions where you can walk out of school with a good job in a big city."

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."

According to Papper's 2005 study, which includes responses from 1,223 TV stations nationwide, 42.8 percent of news anchors are men. The statistics have gradually declined since 1996 when RTNDA reported that 46 percent of anchors were men.

To be sure, plenty of men are making good money in broadcast journalism. Charlie Kravetz, vice president of news and station manager at NECN, said top anchors in Boston can make between $400,000 and $500,000 a year or more. However, many of those jobs aren't stable. ''Josh Binswanger lasted just over one year," he said, referring to CBS4's top male anchor, who was replaced this month by Williams. ''What kind of security is that?"

Kravetz added that public disdain toward the media hasn't helped its recruitment efforts. ''In the '70s, it was a career with tremendous cachet to it. . . . Now, journalists don't have that level of regard from the public."

Shari Thurer, a Boston psychologist, adjunct associate professor at Boston University, and author of ''The End of Gender: A Psychological Autopsy," goes further. ''In the era of 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' newscasters were macho and fiery. Now they have to be so neutral and unbiased that . . . it doesn't seem manly," she says.

''It's more respected to be a pundit than an anchorman because a pundit can have an opinion," Thurer adds. ''Some of these newscasters are awfully bland. Maybe that's not that appealing to young people."

At Syracuse University, whose former students include Marv Albert and Bob Costas, sports broadcasting is the end goal for about half of the male broadcast journalism students, says Chris Tuohey, an associate professor of broadcast journalism who has written on the trend for ''American Journalism Review."

''There is so much interest in sports broadcasting, more than the jobs out there can support," Tuohey warns. ''We keep encouraging our male students to take a look at doing news. The market is right now for moving up."

But for 23-year-old Roger Iapicco, the lone male student in the graduate program at Emerson College, paying back student loans is his priority.

''Tim Russert was my idol growing up," he says wistfully. He adds that during an internship this summer at a station in New Jersey, ''I was sent out as a field producer. I interviewed various people. It was really exciting. Every day was different, which is why I went into this."

But, he says, the other producers complained about the pay. ''They said, 'You better hope your spouse is making some money.' "

Just one semester away from completing his master's degree, Iapicco says he will probably go into public relations. ''I hope to make $50,000 in a bigger city," he says. ''My student loans will be a burden, and I can't see myself living in Nebraska."