It's not a good year for veterans of Miami local news who've gone national. There was of course Rick Sanchez's total breakdown, and Katie Couric's continued ratings troubles at the CBS Evening News. Now it seems that Miami-native and CBS 4 alum Maggie Rodriguez has been fired from her gig as a co-host of CBS's Early Show.
The Early Show is the constant third place finisher in the annoyingly perky morning show wars with The Today Show and Good Morning America. In a bid to increase ratings the unstable morning show is once again shaking up its anchor lineup.
Rodriguez has been relieved of duty along with co-anchor Harry Smith and forecaster Dave Price. Chris Wragge and Erica Hill, formerly of the station's Saturday morning show, will take over. Creepy news robot Julie Chen remains as an anchor, probably because she's married to CBS president Les Monves. Funny how that works.
Rodriguez replaced Hannah Storm as one of the show's hosts in December 2007. Before that she anchored newscasts since 2000 for CBS affiliate WFOR here in Miami and helped the station win an Edward R. Murrow award for its coverage of the transfer of power between Fidel and Raul Castro in Cuba. Rodriguez is a native of Miami and earned her masters degree in broadcasting from the University of Miami.
The AP reports that Rodriguez will continue to work for CBS, but her future role is unclear.
Update: Here's some selections from the official press release from CBS:
Effective Jan. 3, Erica Hill and Chris Wragge will be the new co-anchors of CBS News' THE EARLY SHOW. Jeff Glor will serve as the broadcast's news anchor and Marysol Castro will join CBS News as the broadcast's weather anchor. The appointments were announced today by Sean McManus, President, CBS News and Sports, and David Friedman, executive producer of THE EARLY SHOW.
Erica Hill and Chris Wragge have co-anchored the Saturday Edition of THE EARLY SHOW since 2008. Hill also has been News Anchor for THE EARLY SHOW since January of this year. She has served as news anchor and correspondent for CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360°" and substitute anchor for Cooper and Campbell Brown.
The current cast of THE EARLY SHOW will continue at CBS News in new roles.
Harry Smith will shift his focus to hard news with an expanded role as primary substitute anchor on THE EVENING NEWS WITH KATIE COURIC, FACE THE NATION and SUNDAY MORNING, while continuing to report major stories for all CBS News broadcasts.
CBS News is discussing prominent and ongoing roles for Maggie Rodriguez and Dave Price. "We appreciate Harry, Maggie and Dave's countless contributions to THE EARLY SHOW and are looking forward to the contributions they each will continue to make at CBS News," said McManus.
