Meghan Trainor’s cheery theme for the Today show’s fourth hour (“You better start today! Hoda and Jenna!”) only debuted in September, and will soon be out of commission.
NBC settled its first Hoda Kotb predicament on Thursday with its decision to replace her on the main 7-9 a.m. show with heir apparent Craig Melvin.
Now it faces a new crisis: Who will take on the second strand of Kotb’s job—co-presenting the final hour of Today alongside Jenna Bush Hager—when Kotb leaves 30 Rock on Jan. 10.
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The first three hours of the show will remain a model of stability—Melvin will continue to present the third hour of the show alongside Al Roker, Sheinelle Jones, and Dylan Dreyer.
But instead of slotting Jones or any other familiar Today faces into the fourth hour’s open seat, the network has opted to rebrand the hour Today With Jenna and Friends from Jan. 13—with guest presenters on rotation, one of whom will eventually win the co-presenting crown.
The fourth hour’s executive producer, Talia Parkinson-Jones, promised staff on Thursday the new hour, which premieres Jan. 13, will feature “big names, new games and a lot of fun” as they seek a permanent co-host.
“They don’t have to do anything until January,” a 30 Rock executive told the Daily Beast.
“It might not be the traditional person to replace her,” the executive added. “The show is not built to be done alone. They’re not going to turn that into The Tamron Hall Show.”
But for a show that only slotted Bush Hager, 42, in that role five years ago, whether it can maintain a pillar of its profitability remains to be seen.
The Today show is one of NBC News’ most profitable engines, with the program drawing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue across its four-hour brand.
A 2021 report showed the show brought in $408 million in advertising revenue in 2019, dwarfing totals for NBC Nightly News ($146 million) and Meet the Press ($26 million). It’s also been a large hub for e-commerce, with the show’s “Steals and Deals” segment raking in $60 million in 2018, and various show segments—“Today Table,” Consumer Reports-backed product reviews—get QR codes with links to purchase the products, and the show gets a commission.
The bankability of the talent is important for the network, which deployed Kotb, Melvin, and others to Paris for this year’s Olympics (Bush Hager stayed behind). Comcast President Mike Cavanagh said last month the Olympics earned the network $1.91 billion in revenue and said it was profitable—though he did not disclose by how much.
Hoda & Jenna is a large engine to net some of that revenue, if just by their names alone (if not by ratings—the show has lost an average of 500,000 viewers since the beginning of the year, according to Nielsen data). Bush Hager has her book club that offers purchase links to the titles on Today’s website, and the hour’s landing place on the website offers various places for people to dump their funds—some of which going to the show’s coffers.
It’s also unclear what personality will want to settle for a reduced TV salary in an era of declining ratings and smaller budgets. Kotb reportedly chose to leave her show after the network sought to cut her $20 million salary.
The 30 Rock executive suggested the show could opt for “some celebrity types,” and some have already appeared to throw their name in the ring. Comedian Heather McMahan appeared on the show last month to promote her Netflix comedy special, and she joked—for now—that she was at the network’s beck and call.
“Hi, my name is Heather McMahan, and my schedule is wide open,” she deadpanned to the camera as the hosts laughed.
