Changes to the management ranks at KPRC (NBC) in Houston. Mike McGuff reports Rick McFarland is shifting from Assistant News Director to Senior EP. Also Geoff Dankert, who joined KPRC as News Content Director in June, has resigned, due to health reasons. Dankert joined KPRC after 12 years at WFLD (FOX) in Chicago. We hear Dankert is getting treatment for the undisclosed illness in Houston and Chicago and plans to return to Chicago in the next month.

It looks like more personnel changes are underway at Chicago’s WFLD.

Roughly a month after the station hired Mike Leiderman to revamp its struggling 9 p.m. newscast, assistant news director Geoff Dankert, who had been overseeing the newscast, is reportedly on his way out the door.

Sources have informed the Chicago Tribune that Dankert will be leaving the Fox O&O in June, after 12 years with the station.

Dankert, who worked as a managing editor before being named assistant news director in 2008, took the reins of WFLD’s nighttime newscast after Tony Statz, its executive producer, left for Miami’s WFOR.

Leiderman was named executive producer last month.

It’s official: Mike Leiderman is joining Chicago’s WFLD as an executive producer. Leiderman, who previously served as the EP of WTTW news magazine show “Chicago Tonight,” will oversee WFLD’s 9 p.m. newscast, anchored by Robin Robinson and Bob Sirott.

In last month’s sweeps period, the newscast was down more than a full rating point from the previous year.

The move was first rumored by Robert Feder of Time Out Chicago, who pointed out that Sirott was the host of “Chicago Tonight” during Leiderman’s tenure.

Assistant news director Geoff Dankert has been overseeing the Fox-affiliate’s nighttime newscast since Tony Statz, the previous EP, left for Miami’s WFOR.

“Mike brings a fresh eye to Fox Chicago at a key time, as we look to distinguish our product in both what we say and how we say it,” Carol Fowler, WFLD’s vice president and news director, said in announcing the hiring to staff.