WKBW-TV’s new female lead anchor Ashley Rowe made a strong first impression Monday on the three newscasts she co-anchored.

The former CTV reporter and occasional anchor has a commanding voice, good diction, reads copy well and only once fell into speaking with a Canadian accent as she co-anchored on different newscasts with Jeff Russo and Keith Radford.

You certainly could see what CTV publicity head Scott Henderson meant last week in Los Angeles when he told me she was going to be a big star that could have a national future. She looked like she could almost immediately step into a Fox News anchor seat.

This isn’t to say that Rowe, who has replaced Joanna Pasceri as Channel 7’s primary female anchor, was perfect by any means on her debut day.

She needs to be more comfortable during the obligatory happy talk. During the end of the 11 p.m. newscast with Russo, she said “exactly” three times in 15 seconds to comments made by her co-anchor.

More importantly, Rowe needs to work on the all-important attitude actors and anchors do so well -- faking sincerity. Learning to do that would soften Rowe’s more hard-edged presentation style….

-- Alan Pergament, The Buffalo News