A brutal truth was submerged within the river of tears on Thursday’s Today show after Hoda Kotb announced her departure after six years of co-anchoring the main 7 a.m.-9 a.m. show. Her exit starkly symbolizes how the era of the all-powerful morning TV anchor is coming to an end.
“Next year’s going to be a bloodbath,” a news executive inside 30 Rock told the Daily Beast, referencing the top-dollar salaries news anchors have commanded for years. “All these big moneymakers, they’re all gone.”
Kotb inked a $7 million-a-year deal in 2018 when she took over the Today gig, according to Page Six (she also presents the fourth-hour of Today, first alongside Kathie Lee Gifford, and now Jenna Bush Hager). Her main show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie reportedly makes “significantly more than” $8 million a year, according to a 2020 Page Six report that outlined her deal negotiations at the time.
Kotb’s departure—and the fact that NBC allowed it at all—is the latest and arguably most high-profile example of how the men in suits are prioritizing balance sheets over talent. It’s a stark shift from just three years ago when NBC chairman Cesar Conde was willing to shell out $30 million to let Rachel Maddow work one night a week.
The current era of belt-tightening means such high salaries are a thing of the past—and may next impact ABC’s Good Morning America, whose presenters George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts, and Michael Strahan all command multimillion-dollar paychecks.
Stephanopoulos inked a $15 million contract in 2019, and in 2021, received a “significant pay bump” after threatening to leave ABC after a spat with David Muir, according to CNN. Robin Roberts’ salary was reportedly $18 million in 2016, according to Forbes. Michael Strahan reportedly signed a deal in 2016, after his departure from Live!, that would put his salary at around $20 million, according to People.
However, ABC’s owner Disney is facing its own financial crunch. The company just laid off 300 people as part of a “cost-saving initiative,” according to Deadline, and the New York Post reported the company has ordered Good Morning America to slash its bottom line by $19 million.
Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager accept the award for Best On-Air Talent— Lifestyle/Entertainment at the 46th Annual Gracie Awards on Oct. 5, 2021.
Alliance for Women in Media Foundation/Getty Images for Alliance for Women in Media Foundation
Kotb said on Thursday her decision was largely influenced by her desire to spend more time with her family, which includes two young children. (Kotb has two daughters, aged 7 and 4, and she was off air for two weeks last year when one of her kids had an undisclosed health emergency.) In recent weeks, Kotb has been speaking in glowing terms about her recent move to the suburbs, and the new lives she and her children are forging there.
“I feel like we only have a finite amount of time,” Kotb said on Thursday. “And so, with all that being said, this is the hardest thing in the world.”
Her reasons for leaving, as stated on screen, are absolutely true and genuine, sources have indicated, and—as Kotb and her co-anchors have been at pains to underscore—she plans to remain with the network and contribute to certain projects. But it’s unlikely she’ll earn the salary that comes with anchoring three hours of NBC’s top brand. As she surveyed her new life, and her plans for her and her family’s future, perhaps she also realized that her paycheck was not going to expand out of its current confines, giving her personal decision a practical spur too.
Robin Roberts arrives at the CoachArt Gala of Champions, held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on Oct. 17, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California.
Michael Tran/FilmMagic
The morning TV business is beset by turbulence. In 2016, Today earned more than $500 million in revenue for the Peacock network. A 2021 report (by then-NBC reporter Dylan Byers) noted that, in 2019, the morning show brought in $408 million. In 2021, the first two hours of Today generated just under $300 million in advertising—and the media industry has only weakened since.
Today also finished second to ABC’s Good Morning America in total viewers in the 2023-2024 season (2.73 million to ABC’s 2.81 million), even though it edged out a lead in the advertiser-centric 25-54 demographic. Even as those ratings have remained relatively stable over the last two years, it’s a far cry from the averages the networks saw before 2020, according to a 2023 Pew analysis of Comscore data.
In this worsening economic climate, networks have already taken action. CBS effectively demoted CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell from her 6:30 p.m. slot and plans to turn the third-place, 30-minute program into a show led by three men after the election. It also may have taken a discount when it re-signed CBS Mornings anchor Gayle King—just a week before it axed CBS Saturday Morning co-host Jeff Glor as part of Paramount’s latest round of layoffs. For a company about to be handed off to a billionaire, it’s an indication it can’t keep losing money forever.
As NBC figures out what the next iteration of Today looks like, the race to be Guthrie’s co-anchor is wide open, with no confirmed name yet proffered. Vitally, the search period gives NBC (and other networks facing echoing moments of change) an opportunity to replace their older, name-brand faces—including Stephanopoulos (63), Roberts (63), Kotb, and even NBC’s Lester Holt (65)—with younger, cheaper talent. Someone has to be able to help sell their money-driving “Steals and Deals” segments, after all.