Mornings are about to feel very different for fans of The TODAY Show.
Anchor Hoda Kotb announced on Sept. 26 that she’s leaving the iconic NBC series — and she got pretty choked up while sharing the news. Surrounded by colleagues Al Roker, Craig Melvin, Savannah Guthrie, Jenna Bush Hager, and Sheinelle Jones, Kotb wiped away tears as she explained her decision to viewers.
Now that Kotb’s last day on The TODAY Show has come, we’ve got more on her plans and the reasons for her exit (including both what she said and didn’t say publicly).
Why is Hoda leaving TODAY?
The choice, she explained, began to crystallize during the 60th birthday bash the show threw for her last month. “I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new,” Kotb said. “I remembered standing outside, looking at this beautiful bunch of people with all these gorgeous signs. And I thought, ‘This is what the top of the wave feels like for me.’ And I thought, ‘It can’t get better.’ And I decided this is the right time for me to move on.”
Another big factor in Kotb’s decision was her children, 7-year-old Haley Joy and 4-year-old Hope Catherine.
“I had my kiddos late in life, and I was thinking that they deserve a bigger piece of my of my time pie that I have,” she said. “I feel like we only have a finite amount of time.”
That probably comes as no surprise to viewers, given Kotb’s demonstrated dedication to her girls. Last spring, she missed more than a week of TODAY broadcasts for what was described at the time as a “family matter.” When Kotb returned to the show, she explained that her absence had been due to a “really scary” incident with Hope, who was “in the ICU for a few days and then the hospital for a little more than a week.” (Not to worry — she later shared an update that Hope was “on the mend” and doing just fine.)
Kotb also added that her colleagues’ affection for her daughters made her decision to depart TODAY even more challenging: “This is the hardest thing in the world because just today, I was looking at my phone, and all you guys are holding my kids. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I kept looking at all the pictures.”
But that’s not all — her salary reportedly played a big role, too.
As one of the marquee anchors of NBC’s iconic morning show, Kotb was making a pretty penny: Her salary reportedly totaled more than $20 million a year. And the network’s refusal to continue compensating her at that level was a serious factor in her decision to leave the show, according to a report from Puck.
The outlet explained that while network brass “loved Hoda and knew her value to the brand,” they also made clear to Kotb’s agents that “such stratospheric contracts were no longer justifiable given the industry’s inexorable decline.”
As The Wrap points out, TODAY averaged about 2.5 million viewers — a steep drop from the 4.7 million who tuned in to the show a decade earlier.
Kotb’s co-anchor Guthrie reportedly also pulls in a salary similar to Kotb’s, and it’s likely she’ll be seen as even more essential to TODAY and NBC at large once Kotb is gone from the iconic morning slot. But whoever ends up taking Kotb’s chair is likely to get “a lot less than $20 million,” according to Puck’s reporting.
What is Hoda doing next?
To soften the blow slightly, Kotb says she isn’t leaving immediately. “I’m going to be here through the first of the year — past the first of the year,” she said. “And I’m going to stay in the NBC family.”
It’s unclear what that means, exactly. Even a write-up about Kotb’s exit on TODAY‘s website says she’ll be transitioning into an “unspecified role.” But based on what we know, one thing is for sure: She’ll no longer be subject to the painfully early morning routine that requires her to wake at 3 a.m. (something our very own Katie Couric knows plenty about).
Despite the uncertainty, it seems very likely that Kotb will find something fulfilling to occupy her time. The woman is a real workhorse — in addition to her TODAY duties, she’s also hosted a SiriusXM radio show and authored a handful of books for adults (Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee and Where We Belong: Journeys That Show Us the Way) as well as for children (I’ve Loved You Since Forever and Hope Is a Rainbow).
As Kotb announced her departure, Guthrie made sure to reiterate that she’s not going far: “People have to know, she’s not leaving the NBC family. She’s not. She’ll always be here and be a part of us. You will see her and we will see her.”
We find that very easy to believe, given that Katie’s remained close to the TODAY universe ever since she departed the show herself in 2006. She’s been back at the Rockefeller Center studio multiple times in the last year alone, including to discuss the documentary An American Bombing and to announce a fund for pancreatic cancer research in honor of Alex Trebek.
Plus, as Kotb explained, the network is in her blood at this point: “I was doing the math, and I realized that I have spent 26 years at NBC,” she said.
In a new interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, which aired about a week and a half after she formally announced she’d be leaving TODAY, Kotb said one thing that’s definitely in her future are lots of trips to take her daughters to school.
“I was telling them, ‘Mommy is going to be able to take you to school,’” Kotb shared. “And they go, ‘Wednesday?!’ ‘No honey, not Wednesday.’ ‘Next week?’ I go, ‘No, honey, not next week. Probably somewhere January, February.’ They said, ‘January, February?’ I might as well continue working forever. For them, it’s like, until the end.”
She and Fallon also celebrated the fact that she’ll no longer be getting to bed absurdly early to allow for her daily 3:15 a.m. wakeup. “What am I going to do at night?” Kotb asked. Fallon had plenty of ideas: “You’re gonna go to concerts. You’re gonna go out on dates. You’re gonna go to restaurants. You’re gonna watch bad TV. You’re gonna do whatever the heck you want,” he said, eliciting a high-five from Kotb.
Her chat with Fallon also touched on one of the other jobs she’ll now have more time for: her podcast, Making Space. Kotb and the team are headed down to Austin, Texas, at the end of October for a special Wellness Weekend, which is totally sold out — proving that Kotb’s got plenty to keep her busy when she’s no longer on the TODAY airwaves.
