S.D. STATION BREAKS TV TABOO : TOP NEWS TEAM AN ALL-WOMAN AFFAIR

They are the oddest couple on local TV news. One is an athlete in perfect health. The other was born with a disabling birth defect. One was raised a conservative, the other a liberal. One cut her teeth in the cool medium of television. The other came of age as a disc jockey in the high-energy field of rock ‘n’ roll radio.

Together they co-anchor the most popular newscast in town.

Using a combination of serious news presentation mixed with occasional high jinks, “Nightcast,” Channel 10’s 11 p.m. weeknight news program, has in two years catapulted into the city’s top-ranked news program.

Today KGTV can exult in the runaway dominance of “Nightcast,” co-anchored by Bree Walker and Carol LeBeau. But two years ago management had to risk breaking a television taboo when it considered using two women as co-anchors.

The idea had been tried elsewhere, but no one could point out any success stories.

“We had seen that Connie Chung and Marcia Brandwynne didn’t work out in Los Angeles,” acting general manager Ron Mires said. In 1984, Mires was Channel 10’s news director. It was his decision to replace the departing Paul Majors, LeBeau’s co-anchor--not with a man but with Bree Walker, the station’s consumer reporter and weekend news anchor.

Producer Jeff Godlis was tense as a cat about having to put together a show around two women co-anchors.

“I thought the viewers would want to shoot us down,” he said. “I told the boss we had to be squeaky clean, that everything had to be correct. It had to be newsy. Females would give a soft impression. . . .

“We had to be more than perfect just to break even.”

The 11 p.m. news slot had always been a ratings battle between Channel 10 and Channel 8 (KFMB). “We had to be sure to have hard news stories and get them first,” Godlis said. “I knew that any chance the critics have to cut us down, (LeBeau and Walker) would be perceived as soft. We were not going to do cutesy stories because they are women.”

To balance the female presence, Godlis and Mires installed two experienced male reporters on the program, Jim Wilkerson and Larry Roberts.

But the two women had something else going for them. Both had established their credibility--one of the most important traits for anchors--as reporters.

“People accept them as reporters, not as dizzy blondes,” Godlis said.

Walker was the city’s first consumer reporter, Mires said, adding that LeBeau is perceived as an authority on health matters. Her “Staying Healthy” program, with Dr. Michael Resnick, runs weeknights on the 5 p.m. news. LeBeau came to San Diego from a station in Peoria, Ill.

For most of the first year, the newscast held its own with Channel 8.

“I was afraid that management might get the shakes too fast,” LeBeau said. “We were not told it would be experimental or permanent.”

They watched viewer surveys like hawks. “I was paying attention to female demographics, particularly,” Walker said. “If there was any resistance, it might come from females, because they might miss that male authoritativeness in their news. They didn’t seem to miss it at all.”

Indeed, the station’s research showed that viewers perceived the two women co-anchors no differently than they did man-woman or two-man teams. “It wasn’t a big point,” Mires said. “The men liked them. The women like them.”

This year, aided in part by some miscues at Channel 8, “Nightcast” moved way ahead of its competition. In the Arbitron July survey, the show’s 11 rating equalled the total of Channel 8, which had a 6, and Channel 39 (KCST), which had a 5.

Television news consultant Whitney Strickland agrees with the viewers that “Nightcast” is the top news program.

“It has a better variety of stories,” said Strickland, who also teaches TV news production for the journalism department at San Diego State University. “They cover more news, but give time to important stories. They also leave you on a good note. None of us want to go to bed with a lot of bad news.”

“Nightcast” gets higher ratings than its lead-in programs. “We get a very big tune-in,” Godlis said. “ABC programming is declining and we’ve been increasing.”

Channel 8’s experiment with “This Day,” using a more reflective, laid-back 11 p.m. news format, has lost it six percentage points in the market since it began in January.

Walker and LeBeau praise their producer, Godlis, who writes much of the news copy with the two staff writers. “It’s successful not because two women are anchoring the news but because of the way we present the news. . . . It’s a combination of everything,” Godlis said.

That includes a fast-paced presentation, focusing on what has happened since the 5 o’clock news. It also includes a mix not duplicated elsewhere: A nightly commentary, “Michael Tuck’s Perspective,” was added in September, 1984, five months before the program first edged into first place. Tuck’s segment, in which he gives his analysis and conclusions on a local or national issue, has added a reflective quality to the newscast.

The other members of the on-camera team are weatherman Mike Ambrose and sportscaster Larry Sacknoff. Sacknoff, who replaced Mike Smith earlier this year, brought energy and an ability to be selective with sports clips.

“Super Sacknoff,” Godlis said. “It’s wow, wow energy. He’ll show the great play rather than the home run. They all look the same.”

At the heart though, are LeBeau and Walker.

A journalism major in college, Walker became a disc jockey after she was unable to get a job as a newspaper reporter. She eventually got a job as a weekend reporter with Channel 10.

Walker was born with a severe malformation of the bones and joints of the hands and feet called ectrodactylism. A few years ago she asked for time off for operations on her feet. The corrective foot surgery gave her more mobility as a reporter and impressed management with her desire and ambition.

She often calls LeBeau, who runs in 10K races and once was a competitive swimmer, a John Bircher. LeBeau dubs Walker a “fuzzy-headed liberal.” Although they have some philosophical differences, in reality the two are very good friends.

“We’ve had very few ego problems,” LeBeau said. “We’ve been able to talk about anything that came up that bothered us. If I’m sort of feeling a certain way, Bree might say, ‘Are you OK? Do you want me to take care of the ‘weather toss’ because you’re not feeling too chipper tonight, not feeling too cutesy?’

“I don’t know. A guy might not--not because they’re not kind and considerate. They’re just not punched in to that kind of thing.”

For Walker and LeBeau, working with a woman co-anchor did require one surprise adjustment: “Not having to worry about being subservient, or sort of not coming on too strong because that’s obnoxious when a woman comes on stronger than the man,” Walker said.

LeBeau agreed: “It isn’t quite as much a concern. There’s not a head anchor. We’re on an even keel here.”