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January 26, 2022

How men respond to 'sexy' female news anchors

If you’ve followed CBC’s programming the last few years, you’ve noticed the meteoric rise of one of the network’s bona fide stars: Amanda Lang.

Ist1_10286549-television-anchorwoman-at-tv-studio Having excelled as the senior business reporter for CBC News, she’s now got her own, fantastic show – The Lang & O’Leary Exchange – alongside Kevin O’Leary, the resident Simon Cowell of the channel's other hit, Dragon’s Den.

What’s to attribute for Lang’s success? Well, no one’s exactly mistaking her for Rachel Dratch, which is to say, she’s not totally rough on the old peepers. Yet the 40-year-old has endured not because of her looks but her smarts, wit and palpable way of making geeky economists melt sitting across the news desk from her.

Lang? She’s the exception, it appears, since many attractive female anchors these days make Snooki sound like Hillary Clinton.

All this is interesting, we should say, because of a new research study that shows how men respond to so-called “sexy” news anchors.

According to the report released this week, men pay more attention to better-looking news anchors but, of course, remember much less from their broadcasts.

To uncover such rocket science, researchers had male participants watch two newscasts that were the same except for one variable: in the first version, the female broadcaster “was dressed in a tight-fitting dark blue jacket and skirt that accented her waist-to-hip ratio … She also wore bright red lipstick and a necklace,” the report notes. In the second showing, the woman wore a “shapeless and loose-fitting dark blue jacket and skirt.” No lipstick. No plunging necklace.

Quite hilariously (or, is it, pathetically?) men remembered “significantly” more information from the more modest woman’s broadcast, despite suggesting they prefer the sexed-up program.

Now, here’s where you’re saying, Wow, shocking! And, indeed, scientifically pegging men as pigs would be like taking to a lab to prove Keith Olbermann is a wiener. A little too easy.

Still, next time you shake your head when someone like, say, Ines Sainz pops up on your screen, now you know – once and for all, maybe – why she’s there.

By Jason Buckland, MSN Money

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Gordon PowersGordon Powers

A long-time fund company executive, Gordon Powers now heads up the Affinity Group, a financial services consulting firm. Gordon was a personal finance columnist for the Globe & Mail for many years, has taught retirement planning...

Jason BucklandJason Buckland

The modern-day MC Hammer of money, Jason can often be seen spending cash that isn’t his with the efficiency of a Wilt Chamberlain first date. After cutting his teeth as a reporter for the Toronto Sun, he joined the MSN Money team with...