2024-09-27 23:10:05
Network morning show anchor chairs don’t become available very often, but when they do, they are arguably the most valuable seats in the house.
Despite the well-worn issues facing network TV news and entertainment (sports is a different story), the morning shows have remained beacons of relative stability. The anchors tend to stay, well, anchored, for years. And the morning shows, with their lifestyle focus, are still the cash cows that help to subsidize other less lucrative news programs.
So when changes are made, to the anchor rotation, to the format, to any piece of the morning show puzzle, it is a big deal.
Hoda Kotb’s looming exit from NBC’s Today show is arguably the biggest change to the morning show lineups in years, and the network will have a tall task to not only fill the anchor chairs on two very different shows (the two core hours of Today and the very different 10 a.m. hour), but also decide how they want to show to look and feel. Kotb will shift to a new role at NBC News sometime in 2025.
While every network morning show has since expanded their talent rosters beyond the core anchors to include a larger group of regulars, the main anchor teams have been stable for years. The last major change came three years ago in 2021 when Nate Burleson joined CBS This Morning (now just CBS Mornings) as co-anchor alongside Gayle King and Tony Dkoupil.
King, it is worth noting, inked a new deal with CBS earlier this month.
At ABC’s Good Morning America, the three core anchors of Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos and Michael Strahan have been in place since 2016.
Kotb’s exit early next year will force NBC to decide how it wants to move forward.
It’s worth noting that Today is the last network morning show to have two lead co-anchors, with both ABC and CBS switching to a three anchor setup (again, all the shows have a larger supporting cast including weather anchors, news anchors, and other contributors).
NBC may very well use her exit to change the format to a three-anchor setup as well. Today meteorologist Dylan Dreyer told E! Thursday evening that “I don’t think if they named anyone in our core group of people it would be surprising … We’ve all filled in along the way when somebody’s out.”
While that’s true, some internally at NBC view Craig Melvin, who has been with the show for six years, as all but certain to be a part of whatever format the show moves forward with.
In many ways the harder role to fill is at 10 a.m., where Kotb has been a co-anchor for 17 years, and has held forth with Jenna Bush Hager since 2019. While the show is part of Today, it is closer in look and feel to a more traditional syndicated daytime hour, where the on-air relationship between the co-hosts is the most important thing.
NBC now needs to find someone who gels with Bush Hager, and while there have been fill-ins over the years, getting that role right is critical.
That is especially true with CBS Mornings set to add a third hour next week. While Today launched its third hour in 2000 (and is fourth hour in 2007), and GMA added a third hour in 2018 (it now runs in the early afternoon as GMA3), CBS had kept its flagship morning show to two hours, until now.
CBS Mornings Plus, as it is being called, will be led by Tony Dokoupil and Adriana Diaz, and while it will be on TV in a handful of local markets, it will also stream on the CBS News streaming channel, a big change in how the morning shows are distributed.
Morning show anchors are widely regarded as having the most lucrative deals in network news (former Today anchor Matt Lauer was making more than $20 million per year when he was fired), but the changing economics of TV are likely to be a factor in what comes next as well.
For anchors like Roberts and Stephanopoulos, the network paired their on-air agreements with production deals, letting them produce programming for ABC, Hulu, and other platforms. Journalists like Dokoupil and Bush Hager have multiple roles on multiple hours.
Across the network news landscape, there is an increasing desire to shift things to digital, and to cut back on the eight-figure deals that were once common. If an eight-figure deal is necessary to get a deal done, it is often paired with a larger role.
It’s a morning show corollary to the late night landscape, where downsizing has been the norm in recent years. Hosts Like Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers have survived by doing more than just their shows for their networks, including producing other programming and appearing at network events.
And the changes come as the morning show ratings have been surprisingly competitive in recent months, with GMA routinely number one in total viewers but Today leading in the core adults 25-54 demo. CBS Mornings has also been nipping at GMA’s heel in the demo, and has topped the ABC program a number of times this year.
The closeness of the ratings, combined with the importance of the morning shows to their respective networks, underscores just how significant a change is coming to NBC. Kotb has been one of the faces of Today for years, and when Lauer was fired in 2017, she stepped into the co-anchor slot alongside Savannah Guthrie with ease. NBC has people internally that could do the same (including Melvin, Willie Geist, Sheinelle Jones, Peter Alexander and others).
But with so much on the line, the network may very well use her exit as an opportunity to reevaluate the show’s structure, and kickstart a new era of morning show competition.
