Frivolous question about North American news reporters
 

In the show South Park, whenever thye have footage of a reporter on the show, they always sign off their report with "back to you Tom" or something to that effect as a way of crossing back to the studio broadcast.

Also in a few transcripts of Bill Hicks, (see my signature) he does this again, as my signature is about a positive drug story that could be read out by a news reporter?

So, are there a lot of Tom's as reporters in North America? or some popular news anchors called Tom. I don't know if Tom is a common name but in a few instants i've seen, it's become a sterotypical reporter type name. Since my name is Tom, i was somewhat curious?

Uh.. out of the the three local news stations we have , theres only one guy named Tom. He's a weatherman.

I never read more into it more than just a "throwing it back" to the other reporter.

Probably the best known Chicago weatherman is Tom Skilling on WGN.

According to the 1990 US census, Thomas is the 10th most common male first name.

"Tom" is 154th - so most Thomases must use Tom in everyday use.

"Tommy" is 161st - but most adult tommy's probably use tom. Also, there are tomas and tommie and



http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/dist.male.first

Re: Frivolous question about North American news reporters
 

The most famous Tom in the news business that I can think of is Tom Brokaw. He does the evening news on NBC, I believe.

Tom Brokaw is probably the most famous news anchor in the US right now. That could be it.

Yeah, i'd go with that. Seems reasonable.

Uh, yeah. You got some bad info pall.

A lot of media folks, announcers who have up front talking head type jobs change their names to common ones here in the US. That's real common.