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WFAA8's Daybreak: Cynthia, Greg and the man with no name

By ED BARK
WFAA8's Daybreak is still trying to find itself -- both identity-wise and in the ratings.

The May "sweeps" Nielsen numbers, which became official Thursday, showed the Dallas-based station's early riser continuing to run a still pretty distant third in total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds, the main advertiser target audience for news programming. Front-running NBC5 is very narrowly ahead of Fox4 in both measurements.

Whatever the problems with Daybreak, WFAA8 can't be accused of not promoting it. You can't watch the station for more than an hour without seeing something pop up. And as with most WFAA8 spots, those touting Daybreak are eye-catching and very well produced.

You may have noticed something, though. All of the current Daybreak spots are devoted to co-anchor Cynthia Izaguirre and weathercaster Greg Fields. In one of them they tease one another. In two others, they separately talk about their lives and jobs. Which prompts this question: What about co-anchor Chris Flanagan, who's seen but never identified in the Daybreak spots? He duly laughs it up with his early morning colleagues. But where's his stand-alone promo?

WFAA8 management says that no slight is intended. It's just that Flanagan is the newest member of the Daybreak team and hasn't yet resonated in audience surveys the way Izaguirre and Fields have. So they're getting the spotlight right now.

Flanagan joined Daybreak in early March of 2009, arriving from a Des Moines, Iowa TV station. Interim anchors Brad Hawkins and Jeff Brady, neither with WFAA8 anymore, had kept the Daybreak seat warm in the seven months after Justin Farmer's August 2008 departure to Atlanta.

That gives Flanagan more than a year on the job, which is more time than either Lauren Przybyl has spent on Fox4's Good Day or Scott Friedman on NBC's early morning edition.

Przybyl in particular is getting a more concerted promotional push from Fox4, which is trying to lighten her image and loosen her up. She had a very tough act to follow in Megan Henderson, but seems to be settling in after joining longtime incumbent Tim Ryan in September of last year.

If WFAA8 likewise wants Flanagan to shine -- management insists they're happy with him -- then hasn't the time come to give him a little promotional showcase of his own? So far, though, he's still just that seemingly congenial, nameless guy sitting off to the side.

Here are the three promos we're talking about. What's your take?