Rachelle S. Manzo 
While some fans of the TODAY show were worried that former co-host Matt Lauer was the main driving force behind its popularity and expected the program to start fading away after his dismissal, it does not look like things are moving in that direction.
In fact, post-Lauer’s airings of the show have seen very strong ratings, with a recent installment scoring 4.6 million viewers, more than even Good Morning America, which has consistently had more viewers than TODAY for about a year now.
The main argument against the show after the firing of Lauer was that the name of TODAY had been dragged through the mud just as much as that of Lauer himself and that its reputation was irreversibly damaged.
So far though, that does not seem to be the case, and the producers of the show were able to pick up the pieces and move on.
Hopefully, they will manage to maintain the positive momentum they have got going right now, as they have a steep road ahead of them for at least the next few months.
That is because Lauer’s name is likely going to remain in the press for quite a while after the incident, and the TODAY show will inevitably be mentioned in that context as well.
Plenty of people are aware that Lauer’s misconduct was the result of his own actions and was not related to the show in any way, but it would be hard to communicate that effectively on a broader level, especially with the press constantly working against that effort.
TODAY‘s winning streak over GMA has extended to the past four weeks, but the future is looking less promising because the gap between the two shows is shrinking.
NBC’s morning show averaged 4.38 million viewers last week versus 4.33 million for ABC.
Some experts are now arguing that it appears that Lauer did not justify his $20 million salary all of these years.
