This just in: A female trend

Women rule S. Florida morning TV news.

Viewers of TV news in South Florida may have noticed a growing trend: 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 WFORCh. 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, as do the stations in the West Palm Beach market.

Is the move to all-female pairings in Miami-Fort Lauderdale a concerted effort or a coincidence? Perhaps a little of both.

Although the co-ed format remains the norm in the afternoon, early evening and for late newscasts, the local morning dominance of female broadcasters reflects an increase in the number of women studying communications and working in TV news across the country, media and marketing experts say.

“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.

Although the RTDNA doesn’t track the number of female broadcasters nationally, the association does perform newsroom surveys and found that women make up 44.4 percent of the local TV news workforce, a steady increase from the past.

In South Florida, station officials say they’ve sought to place the best newscaster (man or woman) in the anchor chair when a position has opened up.

After WTVJ morning anchor Eric Harryman left in late March, stations officials tapped Vargas, who was already hosting the midday lifestyle program “6 in the Mix,” to fill in next to Muñiz.

“When we saw their chemistry and energy, we immediately realized we did not have to do a search,” said Migdalia Figueroa, WTVJ’s vice president of news at the NBC station in Miramar. “The decision was made based on performance.”

The stations may simply be catching up to WSVN which was the first station in the market to lead with an all-women morning anchor team in 2012.

“I don’t think it’s about having women as much as having women-experienced journalists who our viewers can relate to,” said Alice Jacobs, vice president of news and local programming for Sunbeam Television Corp., which owns WSVN.

Jacobs also noted that the members of WSVN’s morning team, which includes meteorologist Vivian Gonzalez, grew up in South Florida and have great chemistry that viewers appreciate.