Morning Show Scarjo
The livewire act of Daytime Talk and filling some big shoes
Hoda Kotb’s final week last week on TODAY was a week of celebration and love. As I wrote back in September when Hoda first announced her decision to step down from her role as co-anchor, I love her, and I watch that fourth hour of TODAY often because it’s on usually during my makeup time at work. It’s breezy and cute, she and Jenna Bush have great chemistry, because they truly like each other – and the thing about morning TV is that, well, you can’t fake out an audience, it’s too early in the day, we can smell it if they’re forcing it. Hoda and Jenna were not forcing it, and Hoda is just such an irresistible presence on her own, hers are big shoes to fill.
Going forward, at least for a while, it’ll be TODAY with Jenna & Friends, a series of guest hosts week by week until they confirm a permanent co-host. I assume there will be a permanent co-host? Personally, I can’t imagine that a revolving door of co-hosts would be beneficial long-term for Jenna and I say this from experience. I co-hosted a daytime talk show for a decade, and while of course it was fun to have guest hosts and they’re all delightful in their own way and bring something fresh to the table, it is also more of a lift for the full-time hosts because every week, and sometimes every day in our case at The Social, you’re having to adjust and acclimate and accommodate for a new personality.
People are different, one guest will have a different energy from the next, so day to day and week to week, it’s challenging to get into a rhythm. Daytime TV requires rhythm, morning television DEMANDS rhythm, almost more than any other kind of television, with the exception of game shows. But you get the idea, if Jenna is welcoming a new face week to week indefinitely, it’ll be almost impossible for the fourth hour of TODAY to find a rhythm. So I’m super curious to see what they ultimately decide, and when. Given the time of year, they might not want to bring in someone new. Maybe the plan is to have someone in place to announce at the Upfronts in May which is typically when networks announce the upcoming lineup and start securing advertising. Streaming has changed a lot about how the traditional broadcast schedule works but NBC does still have some investment in its legacy linear programs, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens in a few months.
In the meantime, the first batch of guest hosts joining Jenna has been announced: Taraji P Henson, Eva Longoria, Keke Palmer, and Scarlett Johansson will all come in for a week to hang with Jenna. And it’s not that Taraji, Eva, and Keke aren’t talented and charismatic, but it’s Scarjo’s name that popped the most because while the others, all of them, have actual talk and hosting experience, and a lot of it, this is not Scarjo’s lane.
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