Ann Curry to Be Replaced on Today Show

Ann Curry will be replaced after just one year as co-host of the Today Show as it slips in the ratings race against Good Morning America.

Japanese American Ann Curry will be replaced after serving just one year as co-host of NBC’s Today Show because the show lost the top spot in the ratings to ABC’s Good Morning America for five of the last 10 weeks.

Today, which now runs for four hours each weekday morning, is NBC’s most profitable show. It had dominated its slot for 852 consecutive weeks before losing the ratings lead in early April to GMA for the first time since 1995. Since then the shows have been trading places at the top.

Curry has been on Today since 1993 when she became the substitute news anchor for Matt Lauer. In 1997 she was promoted to news anchor, then to co-host last June when she replaced Meredith Vieira. From 2005 to June 2011 Curry was also the host of Dateline NBC while simultaneously serving as the primary substitute anchor for NBC Nightly News.

Curry’s likely transition to another NBC slot began several weeks ago when NBC officials began discussions with her, according to a report in Time. She has hired Washington attorney Robert Barnett to represent her in negotiations.

Curry had hoped to land the co-host spot in 2006 when Katie Couric was replaced by Meredeith Vieira. She is expected to leave her co-host spot before the start of Olympics coverage.

Savannah Guthrie, co-host of Today’s third hour, is considered the top prospect to replace Curry though both Hoda Kotb and Natalie Morales are also under consideration.

Ann Curry was born November 19, 1956 in Guam to a US Navy sailor of Cherokee, French, German, Scottish and Irish descent and a Japanese woman he met during the US occupation of Japan. They initially tried to marry in 1953 but the marriage was banned by the military. Curry’s father returned to Japan two years later to marry her mother.

Curry lived in Japan for the first several years of her life before her family moved to Ashland, Oregon. She graduated from Ashland High School, then received a BA in journalism from the University of Oregon in 1978. Immediately after graduation she became an intern at KTVL in Medford, Oregon. In 1980 she became the station’s first female news reporter. Later that year Curry moved to the NBC-affiliate KGW in Portland to work as a reporter and anchor.

In 1984 Curry moved to KCBS-TV in Los Angeles where she worked as a reporter until 1990. During that time she won two Emmies. In 1990 she went to work for NBC News, first as the NBC News Chicago correspondent then as the anchor of NBC News at Sunrise from 1991 to 1996.

Curry is married to software executive Brian Ross whom she met in college. They live in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of New York City with their daughter and son.