NBC is set to announce that Kathie Lee Gifford is joining "Today" as the host of the fourth hour, reports FTVLive:
"Several high ranking NBC insiders tell FTVLive that the Peacock is about to name Kathie Lee Gifford as a new host of the Today Show.
"'Gifford will work on the 4th hour of Today,' said our NBC source.
"If you are going to hire Gifford it makes sense to put her on the 4th hour of Today. Gifford is definitely going to 'skew older females' when it comes to ratings. The four hour is geared toward the stay at home women.
"Gifford rose to fame in 1988 when 'Live with Regis and Kathie Lee' went national. She spent years hosting the morning talk show and talking about her kids, Cody and Cassidy. Since Cody is now 18 years old, we're guessing we won't hear as much about him on Today (Thank God!)."
Hard to believe but it's been nearly eight years since KLG lost her bully pulpit ("Live!); her last day was July 28, '00, and during that last frenetic farewell broadcast, Reeg said: This "was the most relentless, exhausting farewell in the history of TV." She also told him she wanted to return some day (she did a few years later, for a reunion). "I hope there will be an opportunity to come back" as co-host, she said. "To think I couldn't come back would break my heart more than leaving."
Newsday's Verne Gay echoes the rumor, "An NBC source tells me - let me add, a RELIABLE and smart NBC source - that the report is true, and that Gifford is set to join."
A spokesman for "Today" neither confirmed nor denied the report, tellin TVNewser, "We think Kathie Lee Gifford is a tremendous talent, but we have nothing to announce."
More details to come as they are known...