Last night, CTV anchor Lloyd Robertson spent his last night behind the anchor desk at the “CTV National News.” As we reported last year, Robertson–CTV’s chief news anchor and senior editor for 35 years–decided to retire, and Thursday evening was his last night on the air for the network. He ended his final broadcast with his signature goodbye line: “And that’s the kind of day it’s been.”

Robertson outlasted most of his fellow evening newscast from the U.S., having served at the same time as Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings. Now He will hand over the anchor desk to Lisa LaFlamme, who will start as the anchor of the “CTV National News” Monday.

Former NBC News correspondent and native Canadian Dawna Friesen makes her debut tonight as anchor of Global National, the early evening newscast of Canada’s Global TV.

Friesen will be based in Vancouver, and becomes the first woman to anchor full-time a national, English nightly TV news program in Canada (rival network CTV has named Lisa LaFlamme as its next National News anchor, but she will not take over the anchor chair until next year).

At Global TV, Friesen succeeds former Good Morning America co-anchor Kevin Newman, who anchored Global National until his departure last month.

Friesen left NBC in July after eleven years with the network.

Here in the United States, two of the three broadcast evening news shows have female anchors, in the form of ABC’s Diane Sawyer and CBS’ Katie Couric.

Now our neighbors to the north are adding one as well. CTV, Canada’s largest privately-owned broadcast network has named Lisa LaFlamme the anchor of the “CTV National News” starting next year.

LaFlamme, who is currently CTV’s national affairs correspondent, will be taking the place of Lloyd Robertson, who announced yesterday that he would be retiring next year.

Meanwhile CTV rival Global Television is expected to name a new anchor for its newscast “Global National,” next week.