Hoda Kotb returned to Today on Monday, telling viewers that her extended absence was due to her three-year old daughter’s health issue. “My youngest Hope was in the ICU for a few days, in the hospital for a little more than a week,” Kotb said at the start of the broadcast. “I am so grateful she is home. She is back home. I was waiting for that day to come, and we are watching her closely. I am just so happy.”
Today co-host Hoda Kotb has been absent from the show due to a “family health matter that she has been dealing with,” co-host Craig Melvin said on the show on Wednesday. Kotb made her last live appearance on the show on Feb. 17.
The program’s long-running co-host — who made her last live appearance on Today and Today with Hoda and Jenna on Friday, Feb. 17 — was MIA again Monday morning. (Kotb was present for the Feb. 20 Presidents’ Day episode of Today with Hoda and Jenna, but that episode was taped on Feb. 17.) Kotb’s respective co-hosts, Savannah Guthrie and Jenna Bush Hager, have not addressed her disappearance on air, beyond saying she is “out.”
Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager will kick off New Year’s Eve on NBC as the hosts of the primetime two-hour special, A Toast to 2022! beginning at 8 p.m. Miley Cyrus, George Lopez, Dolly Parton, and Kenan Thompson are among the talent who will join Kotb and Bush Hager as they look back at the year’s biggest and buzziest moments.
Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager are pushing for a shake up in their morning routine. Last week, the duo led their 10 a.m. hour of Today in front of an audience gathered in NBC’s Studio 6A, a big change for a program that usually is closed off from crowds. They got to award luxury vacations to audience members who had been through hardship or emotional moments, and interact with viewers they would normally never see. The experience left the two hosts feeling such a burst of energy that they are trying to make the in-house crowd a regular feature of their show. “It adds energy and juice,” Kotb says.
NEW YORK (AP) — Oprah Winfrey, David Letterman and Ellen DeGeneres are among the celebrity moderators joining former first lady Michelle Obama on tour for her upcoming book, “The Light We […]
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NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News is branching out from covering top stories to performing a theatrical reading. “Today” show hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb will be among the […]
Hoda Kotb has tested positive for COVID-19 amid a surge of cases in New York City over the last month. The Today anchor’s breakthrough case was first reported on the NBC morning show Thursday, with co-anchor Craig Melvin confirming the news on air. “She tested positive for COVID but Hoda tells us that she’s doing just fine, and we look forward to having her back very, very soon,” Melvin said during the show’s third hour.
Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb are, for many, a morning habit. NBC hopes the Today pair will soon become an afternoon or evening one for a different kind of viewer. Starting June 8, the duo will take the network’s nearly seven-decade-old Today show into new territory. The pair will add to their on-screen duties by anchoring a half-hour “highlights” recap meant to bring the most recent Today news to streaming audiences.
Hoda Kotb’s return to Today boosted the NBC morning show’s ratings above competitor Good Morning America last week. Today topped GMA both in total viewers and in the key news demographic of adults 25-54 for the week of Sept. 2, according to Nielsen. Overall, Kotb’s first week back from maternity leave pulled in an average of 3.872 million live-plus-same-day viewers compared to GMA’s 3.835 million. In the demo, the numbers were 1.202 million to 1.150 million.
One of the on-air fixtures on NBC’s Today show will soon be returning to the lineup. Hoda Kotb, who has been out on maternity leave, said she will be back on the show on Tuesday, Sept. 3, the day after Labor Day.
Jenna Bush Hager will join Hoda Kotb as the co-host of the fourth hour of NBC’s Today. She replaces Kathie Lee Gifford, who announced that she would step down in April.
NBC’s morning TV franchise has become adept at leveraging the network’s coverage of the Olympic Games. Every two years viewers can count on emotional athletes and their families and friends stopping by the remote set of the program on the Olympics site to share the glory. There is more on the line than usual this year due to a wrenching change Today went through Nov. 28, when longtime co-anchor Matt Lauer was fired over his alleged sexually inappropriate behavior with an employee.
It’s easy to compare Hoda Kotb’s salary to predecessor Matt Lauer’s and cite gender inequity. But TV thrives on paying new hosts less.
As far as hard-knocks origin stories go for television hosts, it does not get much better.
Ending the post-Matt Lauer period of uncertainty, NBC has named Hoda Kotb (right) co-anchor of Today, pairing with Savannah Guthrie. Kotb will continue her long-running teaming with Kathie Lee Gifford in the 10 a.m. hour of the morning show.
A source at NBC says that Kotb “will be in the co-anchor chair for the foreseeable future,” after Lauer was fired from the Today show lfor inappropriate sexual behavior.
Jack Abernethy, CEO of Fox Television Stations and co-president of Fox News; Hoda Kotb of NBC’s Today; and Rosanna Scotto, co-host of WNYW’s Good Day New York, were among those celebrating in New York in advance of Page Six TV’s launch in syndication. The new show debuts Monday, Sept. 18.
NEW YORK (AP) — “Today” show host Hoda Kotb says she has adopted a baby girl. The co-anchor of the fourth hour of the NBC morning program said in an […]
Courted by ABC’s The View, the new deal keeps Kotb together with Kathie Lee Gifford on the wine-soaked fourth hour of the Today show.
‘The View’ Has Its Eye On Hoda Kotb
NBC could be up for another battle with ABC, this time over popular Today show co-host Hoda Kotb — who sources say is being considered by ABC as a potential new co-host for The View.
