NEW YORK — Savannah Guthrie made her much-anticipated return to the “Today” show on NBC this Monday, resuming her role at the anchor desk after a two-month hiatus following her mother’s disappearance.
“Here we go, ready or not,” Guthrie stated confidently as the broadcast commenced. “Let’s do the news.”
Guthrie, after delivering a series of news headlines, expressed her gratitude to viewers, saying, “We are so glad that you started our week with us, and it’s good to be home.” Her co-host, Craig Melvin, warmly welcomed her back, adding, “It’s good to have you back at home.”
Concluding the first 25-minute segment of the show, Guthrie and Melvin shared a high-five, signaling her return to the familiar routine.
As a seasoned host since 2012, Guthrie is a prominent figure in morning television. She has openly shared that the experience has changed her profoundly, as her mother, Nancy Guthrie, remains missing. Authorities suspect she was taken against her will from her Arizona residence.
Despite an exhaustive search involving thousands of federal and local officers and volunteers, the 84-year-old mother of three has not been seen since she was reported missing on February 1.
The “Today” show has followed the story closely the last two months but it wasn’t mentioned during the first hour of her return on Monday. Bringing things back to normal was clearly intentional: her return wasn’t referenced during interviews with NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez at the White House and military analyst Steve Warren on the show’s set.
Hoda Kotb, the former anchor who had filled in for Guthrie for much of the past two months and interviewed her former colleague, wasn’t on set Monday.
“Today” has seen a ratings boost over the past two months, and has even eclipsed ABC’s “Good Morning America” as the leader in the morning show ratings. The shows aren’t the profit generators they once were for the networks, but the rivalry is still intense.
“Today” averaged 3.1 million viewers for the first three months of the year, up nearly 9% in an era most broadcast programs lose viewers. It’s hard to tell how much the Guthrie story had to do with that: NBC also aired the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics in February, and both events tend to help a morning show’s ratings.
“Good Morning America” averaged 2.93 million viewers, up 2% over 2025 while “CBS Mornings” plunged 17% to 1.76 million, according to the Nielsen company.
As part of a video message released by her New York church on Easter Sunday, Guthrie spoke about feeling “moments of deep disappointment with God, the feeling of utter abandonment.” But she said the resurrection is not fully celebrated “if we do not acknowledge the feelings of loss, pain, and yes, death.”
In announcing her return to NBC’s flagship morning show, Guthrie said she was uncertain whether she’ll feel like she still belongs.
“It’s hard to imagine doing it because it’s such a place of joy and lightness,” she said just over a week ago on “Today” during her first interview since the disappearance. “I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not. But I can’t not come back because it’s my family.”
She didn’t anticipate faking her way through the show, which is normally light-hearted with a mix of serious, breaking news.
There had been a great deal of speculation about whether she would return.
“I want to smile, and when I do it will be real,” she told Hoda Kotb, who came back to “Today” to fill in while Guthrie focused on the search. “Being there is joyful, and when it’s not I’ll say so.”
Nancy Guthrie made occasional appearances on “Today” over the years, once taking part in a cooking demonstration and surprising her daughter on set.
When Savannah Guthrie returned to her hometown of Tucson in 2025 for a segment recorded for the show, the two visited one of their favorite restaurants and talked about their love of Arizona.
The Guthrie family has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of their mother.
Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped, abducted or otherwise taken against her will after finding blood near the doorstep of her home in the foothills outside Tucson. The FBI later released surveillance videos showing a masked man on the porch that night.
Volunteers and search teams scoured the nearby desert terrain filled with cactuses, bushes and boulders in the first weeks after she vanished.
But attention has faded from an investigation that was declared to be a top priority for the FBI and local authorities. Investigators have not released new evidence in weeks and say the number of tips has slowed. The FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department both said late last week that they had no updates.
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