Since Matt Lauer was fired in November under accusations of sexual harassment, Hoda Kotb has filled in for him on “TODAY.” Kotb has often served as a fill in for different anchors at NBC. Now, it has been announced that Kotb is officially replacing Lauer on the show. She will continue to co-host the popular 10 a.m. talk hour with Kathie Lee Gifford while adding the 7 and 8 a.m. hours with Savannah Guthrie.
It seems everyone at NBC is thrilled with Kotb’s promotion, as reported by E!
Her co-anchor Guthrie announced on “TODAY”: “We are kicking off the year right because Hoda is officially the co-anchor of Today. Let’s give her a round of applause! This has to be the most popular decision NBC has ever made, and I am so thrilled!”
Kotb was also pretty happy about her new position: “I am pinching myself. I think we should send some medics to Alexandria, Va., where my mom has likely fainted after hearing the open of that show!”
While E!, a subset of NBCUniversal, discussed the emotions behind the event, CNN focused on the commercial effects.
“Every change on the morning show is closely watched not just by millions of fans but also by advertisers and business analysts — because the show is a profit machine for NBC,” Brian Stetler wrote. He goes on to mention the former anchor of the show: “Lauer’s firing does not seem to have hurt ‘Today.’ If anything, it has generated higher viewership in the short term.” Lauer has remained jobless since being fired from ‘Today.’
This change is a bigger deal than it seems. By permanently replacing Lauer with Kotb, NBC is breaking away from the precedent of male-female co-anchors. Quite frankly, this is huge. It is one example of millions of people becoming comfortable with having a woman in a position where they have always seen a male (kind of like president.) However, they’re making sure that the change isn’t coming as too much of a shock to their fans.
As E! reported, Kotb said of Guthrie: “We’re sort of like sisters, and everybody wants a sister.”
We’re all for girl power and sisterhood here at Her Campus. We also want to take a moment to highlight the greater movement that this change highlights. 2017 was full of powerful, influential men being revealed as predators and abusers by those that they had hurt. In fact, Time called these women of the #metoo movement the “Silence Breakers” and named them People of the Year. As we call out these men in power, it is important to remove them from power, as the ‘Today’ show removed Lauer. It is just as important to replace those men with diverse, strong women, just as ‘Today’ has done with Kotb. With each change, we take a step in reshaping the system to one more influenced by women, by us.