Despite her departure on June 28, the "Today" show is still lagging in second place, behind rival "Good Morning America" on ABC.
In what might seem like a domino effect, the NBC morning show started losing viewers in early spring this year and then officially lost the overall ratings in the week Katie Couric served as co-host on "Good Morning America" in April. The success for "Good Morning America" broke a 17-year-long losing streak among total viewers against "Today."
During this time, "Today" co-host Matt Lauer was negotiating for a new contract, amid rumors that Ryan Seacrest might replace him. With NBC worried about losing their morning show crown and appealing to Lauer, changes were made.
Ann Curry got the boot after her first appearance on the show in 1994.
It has been widely reported, according to a source telling Us Weekly, "Matt Lauer is 100 percent behind Ann leaving" and that the pair were not on speaking terms in the week leading to her final day.
"Good Morning America" continued their success even after the introduction of Savannah Guthrie as Curry's replacement.
Luckily for NBC, the 2012 London Summer Olympics were coming and hoped its coverage will boosts their ratings.
Not long into the Olympic coverage, ratings still didn't reach expectations.
As Latinos Post reported, the New York Daily News said 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 ABC, NBC decided to act quickly.
NBC reached out to Hoda Kotb to cancel vacation plans and assist in the Olympic coverage.
Ratings increased throughout the London Olympics, at times even with a million more viewers, but decreased again as it ended.
"Good Morning America" was king for the week since the Olympics ended, ahead 162,000 viewers compared to "Today."
The NBC morning show started well for the first day after the Olympics with 4.54 million viewers, beating "Good Morning America" by 338,000 viewers. However, the ABC morning show will rebound for the next several days and even peaking 517,000 as co-host Robin Roberts made a brief return as she's battling a medical condition known as MDS, a blood and bone marrow disease that's also known as preleukemia.
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