The belt-tightening has already hit another big money driver of network TV: the morning show. In early January, Hoda Kotb left the Today show after 17 years. The broadcast journalist was reportedly making more than $20 million a year as a host, and NBC just didn’t want to keep paying that. That’s also why the network axed the band on Late Night With Seth Meyers and dropped the number of weekly episodes of The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon from five to four. They’re all signs of what Variety called “TV’s new austerity push.”
“We do have audiences going to different places to watch their programming,” one agent told Variety. “A number of these entities are seeing their revenues decline. That’s just a fact of life.”
But with broadcast TV’s audience now fractured across streaming, cable, and social media, why is Donald Trump threatening its existence? “This is a…
