Ann Curry Replacement, Savannah Guthrie, Fails to Impress ‘Today’ Olympic Viewers; Hoda Kotb Called to the Rescue

NBC's Today will see a familiar face take part of their Olympic coverage as viewers are still not favoring Ann Curry's replacement, Savannah Guthrie.

The familiar face returning is not Curry, but the host of Today's fourth-hour Hoda Kotb.

Kotb was planned to start a two week vacation until NBC called her to fly to London and assist in the Olympic coverage.

For the past month, ratings for Today have been down, losing every day since Guthrie was promoted to the co-anchor desk to ABC's Good Morning America (GMA). NBC executives hoped the London 2012 Summer Olympics would boost the morning show's ratings, but have so far not met the network's expectations.

According to the New York Daily News, ratings for Today usually see an increase of 30 percent when covering the Olympics, but when early ratings showed the show's Thursday pre-Olympic coverage didn't beat GMA, NBC decided to act quickly.

Kotb will join co-hosts Matt Lauer, Natalie Morales, Al Roker, and Guthrie who are already in London.

"They called Hoda on Thursday begging her to go to London because they said it wasn't working like they thought," said an insider to the New York Daily News.

Kotb tweeted, "Packing my bags and heading to London this weekend - thx for all the story suggestions. You know I will do them!"

"[Kotb] didn't hesitate in saying yes," said the insider.

Kotb was rumored to be Curry's replacement after she was dismissed from the show on June 28 but said she was fine with her current role on the show.

GMA has been averaging 4.57 million viewers, compared with 4.21 million for Today, according to preliminary Nielsen figures. Today's dethronement as morning show king comes after 852-consecutive-weeks as the number one morning program.