This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast. Chris Harrison and Lauren z MC company from the home office in Austin, Texas. Hope everybody's having a good week. We have a big week ahead. You and I are about to take off to one of our favorite places in the world, Monterey, California, Pebble Beach. Not to play golf. Let's just say that. I know you guys think, Okay, LZ's going out to play Pebble Beach again. We get it, she loves golf.
No.
Actually, gosh, I'm trying to think if this is the fifth or sixth time we're going to host the AIM Mental Health Gala up there at Pebble Beach in Monterey. And it's a wonderful, wonderful event that the last couple of years you and I have been co hosting together.
Yes, you've hosted it longer than I've been part of it with you. But it is the AIM Youth Mental Health Organization. They do all sorts of great work with the youth of California, help with suicide prevention, depression issues, education. So a wonderful organization and you know, we're blessed the gala is in yeah, one of our favorite cities in the world, So we're going up there to support and co host that. But before we get into doing good in the world, let's just talk about some pop culture.
A lot of media do some escapist headlines.
We can talk about what we do best, which is debate media stuff. And there was a big announcement last week. Babe with Hot to Copy, the kind of pillar of the NBC Today Show been there for god, she's been there for decades. She's been crushing it one glass of chardonnay after the next on the show. And so no, it was a big news last week. And what I found interesting was she announced it obviously on her own terms, but then it came out later well maybe this was a contract.
Dispute, so I don't even know if i'd call it a dispute. So ho to announce she's going to step down in August. She said, you know, she's turning sixty and that she wants to have more time with her children. I think this might be one of those things of two things can be true at once. Yes, like part of that probably is true, but you know, it's hard to leave sometimes when you've got a great, great gig, and you're making great money, and you think, well, you know,
just one more year. I mean, I know you felt that with The Bachelor. It's like one more contract negotiation, a few more years. But there has also since that announcement come out, and I'll give credit to Puck News, one of my favorite sort of inside baseball media and
Hollywood news organizations on this. They have reported that it might have been an issue with that Hodo was making quote more than twenty million dollars per year at NBC Good Lord and according to their sources that you know, Hodo was very beloved there and they knew her value to the brand, but that they wanted her to take a pay cut. That it was made quote clear to her agents that such stratospiric contracts were no longer justifiable
given the industries inexorable decline. And for perspective, Puck notes that about a decade ago today averaged about five million viewers GMA as well, and today audiences are about half that, with two point something million viewers typically. So look, I think two things can be true at once. That is a staggering salary, it is, and if you think about how like It's not like Hode is the only one on the show. I mean Savannah Guthrie and multiple other people.
Still they're paying tens of millions of dollars in salary contracts, And I completely understand how from a business perspective, they're just like, we don't have the viewers, we don't have the advertising dollars anymore. But then I've also been on the other side of it, where as an employee, you're looking at okay, but you guys are still making a lot of money, and you're still spending a lot of on a lot of things, and these numbers are still really,
really big. And so maybe it just became time for her, of I'm going to go out on a high note. I don't want to take a pay cut to be here. I had been thinking about leaving to spend more time with my family anyway, I mean sixty, She's been doing this a long time. Yeah, And I will say I have one just small personal story with Hoda, but I met her briefly when we were both covering the Royal wedding Harry and Meghan, and she was lovely and I've never heard anything but lovely things about her.
Same. Yeah, So I've run into her a couple of times and had some good conversations with her and could not be exactly what you see on the morning show. She's just a real gem and a sweet woman.
I think that this everything I'm reading here seems true to me. What's your take on.
I think you nailed it best. I think oftentimes in today's media, maybe with social media, we want to believe. It's like you hear a story and then you hear another part of it and we think, Okay, that's the story that oh my gosh, this was just a contract dispute. But what Lauren said is so true. Think about your own life. How often is one truth everything? It's multiple things can be true at one time, and that's what leads you to a decision. She was probably, you know,
himming and hawing over is this the time? And like you said, it is so easy when that carrot is dangled in front of you. I was going through that at the time I left The Bachelor. I was in the middle of a contract negotiation. I'm like, oh, man, do I really want to sign on to this for five more years? And you know, deep down no, I didn't. But it's there and you feel like, well, i'd be crazy not to because I'm not even I wasn't even close to sixty, so I wasn't ready to retire anyway.
So I get where she is. Where she's like, Okay, I'm sixty years old. I've been waking up at three in the morning, driving into Manhattan every day, grinding this out, and man, those morning shows. That is a tough haul.
But she's done it so well and she's so beloved, So I get that there were probably two sides, and maybe just that contract negotiation and them coming to or made it a little bit easier to just say, you know what, it's time to put a pin in this and hand it off to the next generation and move on.
I think it's difficult but good to have that self awareness too. Of would I like say she'd said yes, yes, Well, then even though you love your job, you're going into it with a different level of resentment. You're thinking, oh, but I had kind of wanted to spend more time
with my kids. Oh but I'm tired, and now all on top of that, I have an additional new resentment of I don't really feel like they're paying me what I'm worth here and what I had before, And so then you're kind of doing your job through a different lens and with a different chip on your shoulder. And then do you become worse at the work and do you start to get angry at something that you used
to love? And that's a dangerous road to go down, But like you just said, it's an easy road to fall down because of it's a great job, and it's you know, you're still making good money, and it's a job that everybody wants. When you have this job that people generally think seems really glamorous and aspirational, I always
called it the glittery hamster wheel. Like you're on this hamster wheel and you're like, I'm running on it, and maybe at first you're enjoying it and you're feeling good and you're on a runner's high, and then you're thinking, wait, I'm still running on this wheel, But do I get off? And it's really glittery and shiny and everyone's looking at it, But am I actually enjoying being on this?
I the best some of the best business advice I ever got was very early on. I was twenty three years old. I was signing I think my first contract at KWATV and Oklahoma City, the CBS affiliate and the late great mentor of mine, Bill Tiggans, pulled me aside because I'm like, you know, should I negotiate it? He's like, look, the best advice I can give you is, don't ever sign a contract that you don't really fully believe in
with your heart. And to that point, if you don't, you will come in every day with resentment in your heart and you're not going to give it your all. And you know what's funny is, so many years later I was about to do that. I was about to get involved with a contract where my heart wasn't in it anymore and the resentment would be there. And so that advice always stuck with me. I wish it had been with me and that in that moment, But I bet with Hoda it is that that that was the
bridge too far. Its like, I'm not going to come in here and do something I love and have resentment my heart anymore. And kudos to her for a a great career. Congratulations. It's not the last we're going to see of her. I'm sure she'll be doing other things, but a beautiful career. If it is the end, God bless her. That's said. To go out on your terms is wonderful.
It's really hard to do. It's really hard to end on a high note and to call it. And you know, Puck was speculating, and I agree with them that we might be seeing a little more of this in the next few years. Those sort of stallwarts of like TV News and Morning TV and all that saying goodbye, I mean for very similar reasons. One it's like are they
aging out? And two these contracts are so I mean, they make the point here that on GMA, their morning team costs Disney more than seventy five million dollars.
Strahan and uh Roberts, Oh my god, they have insane salaries. And like you said, the news, ABC News runs GMA, and I'm sure NBC News runs the Today Show. Yeah, it's really hard to justify those salaries in today's climate of trying to get eyeballs.
I was thinking about this as well with the Ellen Degenerous special got released on Netflix a couple days ago on September twenty fourth. I think it premiered extra views, very mixed reviews. I tried to watch it, you did, I used to. I was a big fan of Ellen's stand up years ago, her Here and Now special, if anyone has ever seen it on HBO. My sister and I loved that special. We watched we were like young.
We watched it over and over again because it and we could watch it because it was pretty clean humor. You know, Ellen was known for that. The special is like largely about like she jokes about the way light bulbs are packaged and our voicemail voices and all this really family friendly stuff. So our parents let us watch it, and I thought, you know, I don't even really care how much Ellen like addresses the cancel her being canceled kind of thing. I just wanted to see if she
had to get another good stand up special. So I tried to watch it, and probably like everybody today, I gave it about fifteen minutes and I wasn't really laughing, and so I thought, Okay, I'm gonna turn this off. You know, I'm I'm not really laughing, I'm gonna go And so I didn't even get to the part where she talked about her career and everything that had happened. Really, but one thing that I take away from that is whatever you go through in your career ups and downs.
In this industry and maybe in any industry, it's all about what kind of content you try to come back with, Like Will Smith after the slap. I don't think Will Smith is fully back. I don't he hasn't really done an interview. I think there's still a lot of controversy around that. In the moment, I thought that that whole moment was horrifying the fact that he physically assaulted someone on stage and then everybody in the room was still okay with him getting up and giving a speech and
accepting an award. It was wild to me, and I get that in the moment, it was probably you know, you're having a live show and it's hard to make the right decision and it's very stressful. But it wasn't the right decision for him to go up there. But what he has come back with was he had the new Bad Boys movie this summer, and at the end of the day, it was a good movie. I guess people went to see it. It did huge box office and
he made a movie that people enjoyed. So do I think that that is like step one on him maybe coming back, Yes, because now he can point to well, the most recent thing I did was a hit movie Ellen. I don't think This Special is that hit. I don't think it was funny and I don't think it was like it makes me sad because I don't think Look, whatever you want to think about Ellen. I do think some of that was true about the way that she treated people, but I also think she made great strides
for the gay community. She had a great hit sitcom, she was very funny, and she did do a lot of good things over the years. So she's, you know, a mixed and dynamic person, but she is not going out on the note the way that Hoda is. Yeah, and that is kind of sad.
It's hard to Yeah, it's hard to go out on top. It's hard to go out your way. As you've always said, things in for a reason and usually when they end, it's not because of a good thing. And so it is very rare in sports.
If something's ending, it's not usually not for a good reason.
And sports, in any industry, you look at how many people go out on top, and there's very few that go out like, you know, like our friend Andrew Whitworth. It's like I won a Super Bowl, I'm done. I'm going to go into the Hall of Fame.
Play.
Yeah, John Elway did this. Uh and now you see it in movies and all that's like do you hang on for that last fight? And you're like, oh, like I didn't need to see Jordan in a Washington Wizard's jersey.
They have come back again. No, no, he should. But but look now he's going to have another career as a broadcaster.
By the way, noe to since we're talking media, we are a month into this now. He's done four or five games, remarkably gotten better market. Yes, quick, Learner are doing good? You know, are you? You critiqued him, Yeah, I critiqued him, and he's he had a lot of work to do and he's done it. He found his voice, he found his cadence, he found his rhythm. He's got his confidence. He just needed to needed that. You know, we call it happy feet when you're in the pocket
and you're kind of unsure as a quarterback. He's settled down now. But look, I also think that when you're talking about astronomical salaries, he got one. And is anybody watching a game because you might hear the Tom Brady's on it. That's that's what I think Fox Sports or whoever his whip is going.
To find out his salary is a sportscaster.
Yeah, you know, you look it like interesting, it's yeah, it was over three hundred million or something. Just absolutely insane that I just can't fathom that that sports will ever get back. And I don't know how it was structured or whatever, but the numbers that was that were in the headlines were amazing. But as much as I like Tom Brady and he's doing a good job, I don't look.
First Sports illustrated. I'll just interrupt you to give this number because it's more than either of us realized.
He was three seventeen or something.
For a ten year contract with Fox, which wild to sign on for ten years. That's a long time contract.
I think they did it so they could disperse that money. He'll he'll probably not do it for ten years.
But three, well, Tom, three one hundred and seventy five million dollars.
Good lord.
And see that's why when people are rena go siating like Hoder or whoever. Like I said, on the one hand, of twenty million dollars a year salary seems wild, and on the other hand, they're sitting here saying, but look how much money you have still overall, even though you're saying the industry's declining. I see it both ways.
But yeah, it's you know, I don't know anybody, any of my friends, any or women who think, hey, I wonder what game tom Brady's doing, I'm going to watch that game. So like, no, I'm from Dallas, I'm gonna watch the Cowboys, or oh tom Brady's doing that, or Tony Romo's doing it. I'm not going to turn a game hon Or off because of the announcer. That's That's
going to be the interesting thing with Tom Brady. I think though that he was a property that everyone just felt like, we're not sure exactly how it's going to pay up, but we just need to own the greatest of all time. He's for sale. Let's buy him to Yeah, I get it, but I don't get it.
Do you have the sense with how much better he's gotten, even in a short amount of time, that he will be one of those because I know you have every Elliston. I know this about sports. Guys have their whoever like sports, have their commonators that they like to like, hear their opinion on things. Is he going to be one of those people. Is are you going to want the Tom Brady take on things or is it just site? You know what I'm saying, no in sight versus opinion.
I don't, you know, he's not a Colin Cowhert or something like that, where I love Collin's opinions and watch him and I think he has a good take. Tom Brady isn't like I have a hot take. And honestly, Tom, yeah, And honestly, what's more important in sports is the play by play guy. That's the you know, the color analyst that and I think there's some good ones out there. Traeikman is going to be on tonight with Joe Buck.
I think that's a great team. And you have some other ones with Tom Brady, have Tony Romo and guys that you know, these guys that have left the field and they do a great job. But the play by play guy, the al Michaels of the World's the Joe Bucks, the uh, you know, Bob Costas was a classic one back in the day. Those are the guys. Mike Trico is another great one right now, They really their voice is the voice of the highlight, right They're the one
calling the game. They're in the activity that excitement. Yeah, and so they're the.
Ones getting down the field.
Is that it was it nineteen forty Yes, Hell, he's running down the field.
In my mind the highlight eyes like that trans Atlantic look at their.
Gams on that one.
There I go.
You just listen to the Kentucky Derby in nineteen thirty seven.
Like my most recent sports movies are like, what's that? What's the no crying in baseball?
Oh? Their own with Tom Hanks.
I do want to say one thing about the Ellen thing though, because I said it's kind of sad before, and I do want to give this perspective and my way, did you you? You were on Allen many times, so here's but you didn't have bad experience.
I have such mixed feelings about Ellen because I'm biased. I like Ellen. I was on her show gosh if I'm just guessing a dozen times, and even when the late Great Twitch her DJ DJ, he was off and I did a fill in thing where I was like I would dress people were coming on dressed up, and I dressed up as a panda and I sat in twitches like DJ, and she would try to guess throughout the show who the DJ was, and so I did stuff like that for Ellen. I did a bunch of like little vignettes for her.
She was very into the Bachelor world.
She was very into the Bachelor world. And then we kind of befriended each other. We played we were in a poker game together. We played poker together a few times, and we just every time we ran into each other. I found her very friendly. She was very kind to me. We had a relationship on the air, but a little bit of a relationship off the air. So I've always been a little biased that I have been a fan of Ellen.
But that's true, and that's what I mean. I'm like, I don't and when you're someone that big, again, all these things can be true and it doesn't make her inherently a bad person, Like I don't think Ellen's evil, you know when people and I think people tried to paint her that way.
And people need the either or thing.
Yeah, And I just want to add the note of even though I didn't love this latest special from the parts I watched, we still don't know how Ellen will be remembered overall. Like by that, I mean time changes everything, Like you know, think of like how a movie can be called a cult classic. Like maybe when the movie came out it bombed to the box office, but then over the years people created the spandom and realized, oh wait, that was actually a great movie, and now they quoted
and it's beloved. We don't know. Ellen's career spanned decades. She did a sitcom, she did Finding Nemo Movies, she did her show, her talk show. So I just think we're going to need more time to see and I predict that in the future we'll look back and people will have more fondness and they will say that that little blip of the ending of it, doesn't she That's not how it will be.
She was a groundbreaker and innovator, breaking into the late night shows and then and it's kind of.
Fair to me to take away all of the bravery that she had, Yeah, announcing she was gay on television and getting show canceled over it. I don't want to take that moment from her.
It was incredible, And look, she was an innovator. We were all looking for the next Oprah, and she stepped into those shoes in a very different way, found her own her own beat. Everyone tried to be Oprah. Instead, Ellen became Ellen and had a successful, you know, talk show, which is virtually impossible to do and make it successful.
So I've always been a fan. She was always good to me and good to the franchise, and so I've always been a little biased in that regard, and so I wish her well and I will remember her fondly as a pretty good poker player too. There was a little bit of controversy on Dancing with the Stars. Did you see this with Anna Delvi?
I saw the briefest of clips. I have not been watching this season, but Anna Delvey, the infamous alleged scammer, well convicted, convicted of st I get you know, I'm always careful.
I want to this was legit. She was convicted.
So she's on the show, but did not make it very long. I don't think the season has been airing that long. And she was eliminated. Yeah, and walk us through what she said?
Well, she she basically had this quote at the end where they, you know, I think it was Julian Huff They give the brief goodbye, Yeah, the brief goodbye.
It's do you have any words about the show, And she's.
Like, you know, do you have any takeaways or do you have any words?
What did the show teach you?
Yeah? Nothing?
She literally said, quote nothing and the show ended.
And now you know, she has kind of come out and said the show used her. I painted her in a bad light. They just used her for ratings.
I'm sorry. What does she think being on this show? Is?
Well? What's funny is and bless her heart, I think she's kind of so delusional that she actually believes she's like, well, the reason I didn't stay on and people like Eric Roberts and others that got worse scores than I did, my viewers and my fans, my people are younger.
Maybe she doesn't realize. I don't think she has a fandom. I think she has people interested in the drama of the story that she created and what she did, and it's salacious. But that's different than having fans.
ABC isn't going to do anything if it's not for ratings. That's the point. Dancing with the Stars is having, by the way, a resurgence. It's having one of its best ratings years in quite some time. The last week's ratings were a point seven six four point eight million, That is just above Survivor as the number one show. Survivor does a point seven to two with four point four million. That is staggering, huge numbers. And so Anna, you were a part of feeding that flame. Your scandal was a
part of that. I think maybe she thought this is going to be a big redemption to her and people are going to fall in love with me as I dance around with my anklet. She has to wear a she's at home whatever.
Home monitor, which was a brilliant move. Now I can hear in her. I'm reading a quote here from she was on Tory's Spellings podcast and she said that you guys told me what I'm supposed to do. I tried to do it, and then I was still rejected. And I'm taking away nothing. This is what I'm taking away from it because your advice was worthless. The advice did not pay off for me, even though I tried to
follow it. So you tell me what you're hearing in that, because what I'm hearing in that is I can hear the producers telling her this is going to be a redemption story for you, like you can win over the hearts of America.
Oh yeah, And so I know what I'm telling her I do know. Okay, look, I'll defend her in this. I know how it was sold to you. Anna, I know what they told you. But whoever your people are around you, you have to be more savvy than that. You were coming on for one reason. And if you've if you've ever seen the show, and she claims she's never really seen the show before, which that's on you. Then it's been on for twenty years.
Do you research?
Yeah, that's on you. They weren't going to paint you as this great redemption story. That's not what it was about. You're a convicted felon, so that was the story. But I will also say this they needed because that's the thing with days, with the stories. It can't all be great stories.
Well, and they can't all be the same type of person. But here's the thing. They're not going to shine a gentle spotlight on you. But I will say this, and I haven't seen how they painted or I haven't seen the packages, so I guess I didn't do my research on this one. But the redemption story is also on you to show that you want to be redeemed. Like another thing I'm not hearing in these quotes that she's saying yeah, and hey, look she's staying on her own brand.
But she is, like she said, quote that the show is a waste of time. She said, it is what it is, and it's fine. I never had high expectations on the show for myself. Well okay, I mean, if you're going to treat it that way, like for it to be a redemption story, one, they are selling it to you that way, and so they're selling it. But if you want it to be that, you have to create that too, Like you have to be vulnerable and dig in and open up and show that you're sorry.
And I don't know that she's done that. And that can go either way. Either she could have shown she was sorry and really gotten something off the show, or she's going to stay on Brandon's Annadelvi and people will like laugh about her wild comments, just like we're doing now, and maybe that'll.
Take her something, I mean a little bit in her defense. You know, I think everybody has this idea when you go on reality TV that you have any amount of say and how your power, any power or any say, and how you're being portrayed. I'm sure she probably gave it the first week to see, oh, you know, they're asking me these questions, and I'm she may very well may have in all those interviews with the producers been very contrite, very loving, very glowing about Dancing with the Stars.
They took it in the direction they wanted to. The producers decide how you're going to be portrayed. Every reality show is the same. This isn't just on ABC, but I know ABC does this. They're going to portray you how they want. And so your videos, what your dancers are saying, how the judges talk about you, all that has been decided by producers. So look, the deck was stacked again. But she should have known that coming in she was going to have to do a thousand times
more to be have any sort of redemption. We've seen this season for twenty years. You knew what was going to happen. So Anna, you know, buyer beware and just coming in saying claiming ignorance. That doesn't fly with me, you know now in reality TV, and she should know. Ratings wise, by the way, I was just I did
a deep dive on this. I was kind of interested because Dancing with the Stars is doing so well, and I say well as a relative term these days, because just ratings around the globe are just kind of dismal, but Dancing with the Stars and Survivor are very much at the top. Big Brother is still right there kind of in that number three spot with a point five
seven three million viewers. Then you go down to Mass Singer, which just debuted again, which I remember everybody just laughing about that show that there's no way it was going to work, and man, it really has hung on. At the very bottom of the barrel is The Golden Bachelorette. Some of the worst ratings the franchise has ever had.
It I think it was. I did see it started. It was the worst premiere ever.
It started at a point two and it did go up to a point three, but still under three million viewers.
So that's at a point three in Dancing was it a point seven? Yes, Oh that's a big difference.
Two wow. So it's really really bad, kind of a disaster for the franchise. But the overall, I would say reality is strong, and you see some of the Pillars Survivors still holding on doing what they do best. And and I'm happy because Alfonso Roberto is hosting that with Julianne and it's doing well. So dancing has come back. So congrats to them for the resurgence. And Anna, did they do it at your expense? They did? And you should have known.
One last headline unless you have anymore. But Kristin Cavaleri revealing this, I was going to surprise you with this. She has broken up with Mark Estes. They broke up after just seven months of dating. And you know, they made headlines for their age gap. He is twenty four, she is thirty seven. And we had talked about their relationship a little bit because obviously we have an age gap. But my rule is always I don't think age gap
relationships should happen with people in their early twenties. Your brain isn't even fully developed yet. And so am I surprised that they broke up.
No, he's a year older than our son. Think about that. If my son, if Joshua came over and said, hey guy, Christi Cavaler, if josh came home, that puts it in perspective. They're thee and if he was dating a thirty seven year old, I would really really need to know how they met, what they have in common, This what this relationship is based on. Because he's at a very he
just graduated college and he's starting his career. This guy, I know he's a TikToker, but that's a very tough thing to figure out what your relationship is going to be based on.
Look, the way that I always viewed it was this was a bit of like a rebound starting to get back into dating relationship for her post divorce, and no part of me is shocked that they broke up after seven months.
I have one more thing to quote to ask you about. Oh, I'm very interested Taylor Swift and Travis Kelcey. You remember the pack, the breakup pack that leaked allegedly that they were going to break up on September twenty eighth.
Yes, it was like footage of an alleged PR document which.
Just reallyreaked a fake. Freaked a fake to me, Yes, yeahreaked a fake.
I guess what PR company is going to put it the top of a document secret and confidential Travis and Taylor breakup plan? Like what?
Welldon Lowrenzima, how come we haven't seen them together since September twenty eighth. She hasn't been to his games, she didn't go to his big acting debut of Grotesque ESK or whatever.
Oh the grotesque ye show.
She wasn't there. Allegedly she's getting ready to continue the Era's tour and she's working, but she has not been around and we have not seen them. So at the end of the day, is the joke on us.
Well, wouldn't it be silly once that leaked for them to still break up September?
Contract's a contract, I guess. Oh wow, good guys. In her defense, they're like, well, she wasn't at the game, you know, in La against the.
City every game.
Yeah, my god, she can't be the constant cheerleader. And by the way, I didn't even watch that game. It wasn't a great football game. So you can't expect her to care about all of them. And I think it's unfair to put that on her, like you need to show up at everything, or he needs to show up at everything for her. But it is funny that people are the murmurs are like, well, you know, we haven't seen them since that alleged date.
She didn't go to the TV show premiere with him. Yeah, that's a little surprising because that feels like it's like a big job. Yeah, huh.
So there you go, just food for thought.
The seeds are planted, anything's possible, things possible. We'll see what happens.
Well.
Thank you everybody. We always love talking to you, and we will talk to you next.
Time because we got a lot more to talk about. Thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram at the most dramatic pod ever and make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars. I'll talk to you next time.