Hoda Kotb’s Final Day on ‘Today’ Show Revealed

Hoda Kotb’s departure from the Today show is officially on the calendar. After announcing in September that she would be leaving NBC News’ flagship morning show after 17 years, Kotb announced Thursday that her final episode will be Friday, Jan. 10. Beginning on Jan. 13, Craig Melvin will join Savannah Guthrie at the anchor desk and host three consecutive hours of Today.

“We knew that my last day was coming, so now we actually have the date,” Kotb shared. “So the date is going to be after the new year, Jan. 10. It’s a Friday. That’ll be our party day. So we’re going to throw a party together.”

While Kotb’s upcoming departure is an emotional talking point for the Today cast and crew – Guthrie said her Today co-stars will spend Kotb’s final week celebrating her – the long-time NBC staple had nothing but praise to sing for her replacement. Melvin is a long-time Today figure, who began working on Today in 2018. He currently hosts the third hour of Today alongside Al Roker, Sheinelle Jones and Dylan Dreyer.

“You were made for this job. You are that kind of good,” Kotb said. “You have all the things that this job needs. You’re the right person for it.”

Kotb first announced her decision to step away from the Today anchor desk in September. Explaining her decision, she said it was inspired by her 60th birthday and a desire to spend more time with her daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 5.

“I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new,” she said. “I remembered standing outside looking at these beautiful bunch of people with these gorgeous signs, and I thought, ‘This is what the top of the wave feels like for me.’ And I thought it can’t get better, and I decided that this is the right time for me to kind of move on.”

She added, “I obviously had my kiddos late in life and I was thinking that they deserve a bigger piece of my time pie that I have. I feel like we only have a finite amount of time. And so, with all that being said, this is the hardest thing in the world.”

Kotb has been a staple at NBC for nearly 30 years, first joining the network as a correspondent for Dateline in 1998. She was the first host of Today‘s fourth-hour broadcast at 10 a.m. in September 2007, and in 2017, she was named co-anchor of the flagship hours of NBC’s Today.

While Kotb is retiring from the news desk, she isn’t retiring completely. She told PEOPLE last month that she is working on getting a “really good wellness app together and do wellness retreats and things like that.” Kotb said the project is “still early on in the stages.”

Today airs weekday mornings on NBC.