Canada will join U.S. in having two nightly female anchors

My American readers generally don't watch Canadian news. Heck, even Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he doesn't watch Canadian news.

But in the near future, Canada will have something in common with its neighbors to the South: two of the three primary over-the-air newscasts will be anchored by women.

Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer have established this mark in the United States, though Barbara Walters and Connie Chung have co-anchored nightly newscasts.

Currently in the big three chairs in Canada — CBC, CTV, and Global — men anchor the news. But at CTV and Global, changes are coming.

Dawna Friesen (left) has spent the last 11 years as a reporter for NBC, based in London. Before then, Freisen worked as an anchor and reporter for CBC and CTV.

Friesen will take over the Global nightly news chair on August 20 for Kevin Newman.

If Newman's name sounds familiar, you might remember him from his work at ABC News from 1994-2001. Newman has been in the Global evening news chair since 2001, launching the network's first nightly newscast.

The other new female anchor has a longer wait before she starts this chapter of her career. Lisa LaFlamme (left) will take over for long-time CTV National News anchor Lloyd Robertson in mid-2011.

Robertson has been the sole CTV anchor since 1984 and first starting anchoring the CTV news in 1975. Robertson spent a long time at the CBC before jumping to CTV.

LaFlamme has a mixture background, serving as the national affairs correspondent and substitute anchor and previously as the parliamentary correspondent.

She also has been a co-host on Canada AM, similar to Today and Good Morning America.

Couric and Sawyer rose to their positions by spending long years in morning shows and/or nightly newsmagazines. Friesen and LaFlamme have stronger news backgrounds leading into their ascensions to the evening news chair.

Peter Mansbridge is still the anchor of The National, CBC's nightly news show, and has been since 1988. Mansbridge is probably the most recognizable anchor to U.S. audiences, either from C-SPAN coverage of Canadian federal elections or Americans who live on the border and can better access Mansbridge and the CBC, especially in Buffalo, Detroit, and Seattle.

The transition in the U.S. was positioned as a youthful change from the long-time anchors of Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Canadian Peter Jennings. While Robertson is 76, Mansbridge is 62, but Newman is only 51. Freisen is 46 and LaFlamme turns 46 later this month.

For Canadians, having a single female nightly news anchor will be something new. But if they watch the American newscasts, which they can easily with cable and sometimes even without cable, and we know Stephen Harper watches the U.S. newscasts — they will know they have seen this somewhere before.

photo credits: Dawna Freisen, Lisa LaFlamme from CTV

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[Creative R]

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