Pay Cut Reportedly Behind Reason Hoda Kotb Has Chosen To Step Back From Hosting Today Show

For years, many have predicted the fall of television, and it’s starting to seem like that day is finally at hand with giant streamers working to claw away every single TV audience they can get.

With TV losing many of its audience, it was only a matter of time until there’s a big shakeup and the big earners in TV would have to make a difficult decision: either gratefully accept less payment or go home. In Hoda Kotb’s case, she gracefully quit.

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For six years, Hoda Kotb has been on the Today show bringing us all the latest gists from the entertainment and political world with her own brand of humor.

Even though she is beloved in her role, NBC reportedly told her that they can no longer justify her salary, which is rumored to amount to $20 million annually.

Speaking to Puck News, an insider revealed that NBC executives “made clear to her agents that such stratospheric contracts were no longer justifiable given the industry’s inexorable decline.”

While neither Kotb nor NBC have chosen to comment on the latest revelations, it hasn’t escaped notice that TV is doing poorly these days. Ratings for morning shows have been linearly falling for several years.

For example, a decade ago Today Show easily boasted an average audience score in the 5 million range, but these days, they merely average a little over 2.5 million. That’s a sharp drop, don’t you think?

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Hoda Kotb – Announces Desire To Turn A New Page At 60

While pay cut is now the rumored reason Kotb chose to leave the show, she didn’t mention it at the time of her announcement.

“I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new,” she said. “I remembered standing outside looking at these beautiful bunch of people with 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 that this is the right time for me to kind of move on.”

She further added that motivation to spend more time with her daughters, Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, influenced her decision to leave.

“Obviously I had my kiddos late in life, and I was thinking that they deserve a bigger piece of my time pie that I have,” she said. “I feel like we only have a finite amount of time. And so, with all that being said, this is the hardest thing in the world.”

However, her exit is not yet imminent as she will continue co-hosting the morning program alongside Savannah Guthrie through January 1, 2025.

So it’s going to be a new year, no Hoda Kotb.

Be sure to catch up on everything happening in the world of Hoda Kotb right now. Come back here often for all Hoda Kotb spoilers, news, and updates.

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