Ann Curry to Become NBC's Global Reporter at Large

Thursday was Ann Curry’s last day as co-host of NBC’s “Today.” After just one year in the job she is being replaced by Savannah Guthrie, an attorney and journalist who is co-host of Today’s 10 o’clock hour.

“Today is going to be my last morning as regular co-host of ‘Today,’ ” Curry said around 8:45 on Thursday’s show. She fought back tears. She seemed to be apologizing to the audience, saying the departure wasn’t “as I expected to leave this couch after 15 years. I have loved you and wanted to give you the world, and I still do.

“For all of you who saw me as a ground breaker, I’m sorry I couldn’t carry the ball over the finish line, but man I did try!”

She explained that she will remain a part of the Today show family though she will no longer be a regular on the show.

“They’re giving me some fancy new titles,” she said.

She explained that that she and a team “of my choosing” will “go all over the world at a time when the country and the world needs clarity.”

Curry’s new title, as set out in NBC’s announcement, is NBC News National and International Correspondent/Anchor and “Today” Anchor at Large. The title comes with a new long-term deal with the news division. As Today co-anchor Curry was paid $10 million a year. The financial terms of her new deal weren’t announced.

Now Curry’s globetrotting reports will air on all NBC News programs, including “Today,” “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” “Rock Center with Brian Williams,” “Dateline” and MSNBC, as well as across all digital properties. Curry will also serve as anchor for a number of NBC News prime-time specials.

“After all these years, I don’t even know if I can sleep in any more,” Curry told fellow Today Show regular. “But whatever time I wake up, I will be missing you and believing in all of you.”

“You have the biggest heart in the business,” said Lauer who had been rumored to have wanted Curry replaced as co-host. Since Curry replaced Meredith Vieira last June “Today” has lost much of its audience lead over ABC rival “Good Morning America”. During four of the past 10 weeks GMA actually topped Today for the first time in 16 years.

“You put it on display every single day . . . and have for almost 20 years. The way you care about people comes through in every single story you report,” Lauer continued in his tribute to Curry.

Curry’s had become well known for her deep empathy for the subjects of her reports. But that quality was regarded by some observers as counter-productive to the show’s ratings, especially with the desirable 25-34 age segment. Her fans have expressed appreciation for using her serious journalistic skills to shed light on important and complex social issues. To some extent her new assignment is more likely to draw on those skills than her somewhat stultifying post as co-host of an infotainment program that had become increasingly devoted to fluff as it tried to regain its ratings edge.

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.