Why ‘Today’ Looks Even Stronger Since Hoda Kotb Replaced Matt Lauer

There’s a good reason Hoda Kotb looks so comfortable in Matt Lauer’s former “Today” show chair: she’s a lot better-liked than he was, according to the main metric networks use to gauge the popularity of their stars.

Kotb was named as Lauer’s replacement on Tuesday, just over a month after NBC fired him over sexual misconduct accusations. Everyone seems pretty stoked about the team of Kotb and Savannah Guthrie — and with good reason.

According to the Q Scores Company, Kotb’s most-recent (September 2017) Positive Q Score was a 16, and her Familiarity rating among adults is currently at 30 percent. While those are about average scores for a program host (a 17 and a 35 percent, respectively), they’re better than Savannah Guthrie’s numbers.