After Meredith Vieira’s emotional farewell from TODAY in 2011 to spend more time with her family, the former co-anchor will be back on daytime television with a new talk show in 2014.
“I took a couple of years, and finally my husband said, ‘What are you going to do?’’’ Vieira said when she joined her former co-anchors on TODAY Tuesday. “He kicked me out.”
NBC Universal announced that “The Meredith Vieira Show” will syndicate to local stations starting in September 2014. Vieira, who also hosted a daytime edition of game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” joked about having a show named for her, like another former TODAY co-anchor who made a foray into daytime television.
“I didn’t want that,’’ she said about the show’s title. “Honestly, I’m self-conscious about that, but they said, ‘What are you going to call it, ‘Katie?’’’
When Vieira asked Savannah Guthrie, Natalie Morales and Matt Lauer what the show will be about, Natalie suggested the “three H’s – heat, heart, humor.”
“And a lot of nudity,’’ Vieira joked.
The show will feature a mix of celebrities and human-interest stories and will be filmed in New York City on a set that will look like Vieira’s actual home.
“For the pilot, we took all of my furniture,’’ Vieira said. “We are not going to have the dog on the show because he’s protective, but we are going to have an animal on every day.”