PARIS — It’s part of her daily ‘Today’ show routine, and it doesn’t change even when NBC’s popular morning program – a staple of the network’s Olympics coverage in Paris this year – is starting half a world away, live at 1 p.m. local time, much to her delight.
Every weekday morning, Hota Kotb, co-anchor of the show that draws nearly 3 million viewers per week, calls her daughters, Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, and her mother, Sami, on FaceTime.
‘There’s a break at 7:30 a.m.,’ Kotb said. ‘It’s a four-minute break and if I hit it just right, I hit that FaceTime button just right, I’ll get three minutes with them before we go back on the air.’
On Monday, in the show’s first broadcast with a full cast from the Paris Olympics, Kotb snuck her FaceTime call in as producers, camera operators, engineers and guests scurried around her.
Dozens of family members from the U.S. women’s gymnastics team were waiting on an adjacent set on the terrace of Cafe de l’Homme, the one used as the main stage for the network’s nightly broadcast. Ina Garten – cook, author and the host of ‘Barefoot Contessa’ – had already finished slicing a hazelnut cake. And as Kotb talked to her kids and her mother, she made sure to show them the Eiffel Tower behind her back, a stunning view the network secured for its coverage four years ago.
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‘I got my mom on one box and my kids in the other box. Mostly we say, ‘I can’t hear you. What did you say? Wait, put that down.’ But they were like, ‘Mom, is that the Eiffel Tower behind you?’ ‘ Kotb said.
‘I wanted obviously to have a morning bond with my kids cause they don’t see me in the morning until I get home. Usually it’s after school or whatever, so I’m like, ‘No, I want them to know, Mommy’s at work, this is the place,’ and they get a kick out of it. They get to see (Al) Roker, wave to Savannah (Guthrie). Like they’re into it, so when they saw the Eiffel Tower, my mom was squealing with delight cause she and I went to see the Eiffel Tower together some time ago.’
Kotb, Guthrie, Roker and Craig Melvin spent two hours on air Monday as 95 guests rolled through their set. More than 50 people behind the scenes made sure the operation ran smoothly, with stage manager Yosef Herzog keeping everyone on time.
‘It’s like landing a very big plane on a very small runway,’ he said.
After they were done, the entire ‘Today’ show cast hustled to black minivans waiting in the street to take them to Versailles to shoot a segment, and maybe do a little sightseeing, too.
‘There’s something about being here, there’s something about the Olympics that just is so exhilarating and exciting, and it’s just fun to be rooting for Team USA, to be on the same team, to have something joyous and inspirational to talk about,’ Guthrie said. ‘So it’s a difference because of the time, it’s a difference because of the subject, it’s a difference because we’re together and relaxed and it’s a joyous occasion for everyone, so it pulls us together.’
When they’re not at the Olympics, Kotb, Guthrie, Roker and Melvin typically wake up sometime between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. for their show that broadcasts live at 7 until 9 a.m. from New York.
On Monday, Guthrie joked she woke up at 9 a.m. for the first time since she had kids.
‘My daughter’s about to turn 10, so I’m going to say 10 years,’ she said.
After taping the show’s open from the second story of the Eiffel Tower, Kotb, Guthrie, Roker and Melvin arrived at Cafe de l’Homme at 11: 51 a.m. and spent most of the next two-plus hours on camera. They taped segments for NBC affiliates in Houston, Miami and San Diego and ate ‘Jurassic croissants’ from French chef Philippe Conticini that sell for 75 euros each.
Garten prepped a large plate of bread and fruit off-camera before the show, then covered it with a towel as someone placed a sign reading, ‘Not for you, sorry,’ on top. Crumbs from Conticini’s croissants were scattered all over both sets, clogging the hand vacuum the crew used to scoop them up.
By 1:19 p.m., Herzog hurried one family member of each of the gymnasts onto the second set for a smile-and-wave intro that the show would use at its next commercial break.
‘I know it looks weird, but I promise it looks better than it feels,’ he said.
As assistants hustled to move couches and tables onto the set for an interview, two camera operators rolled their pedestal cameras into position and a third walked over with a 55-pound steadicam strapped to his back. Herzog and his stage crew moved the rest of the Olympic family members to the back of the stage for a closing shot.
When Herzog heard a baby begin to cry in the background, Ron Biles Jr., Simone Biles’ 40-year-old brother, ran down the hall to pull his 20-month-old daughter out of a stroller and calm her with a pacifier.
For the next 80 minutes, guests came and went, including American silver medalist swimmer Nic Fink, diver Kassidy Cook, mountain biker Haley Batten and fencer Lauren Scruggs, and former swimmer Michael Phelps, who’s now part of NBC’s coverage of the Games.
Fink said appearing on the show was sort of ‘the cherry on top’ of winning a medal, though with more events to compete in, his Olympics aren’t over yet.
As the show wound down Monday, Kotb offered a reporter a taste of Garten’s hazelnut cake and summoned Mike Barsky, the show’s head of utility, on set to model a scarf during a fashion segment.
Twenty-four minutes after it ended, and after posing for dozens of pictures and videos with fans waiting outside the cafe, the crew was off to Versailles to finish its work day.
‘It is such an adrenaline rush,’ Kotb said of doing the show at the Olympics. ‘It gets kind of crazy. I think there’s this whole vibe of like athletes coming in, they’ve got their medals on, their parents are here. So I feel like you’re just on a high. You get up – it’s like riding a wave. You’re up here for a while, later we’ll go down but when you’re up on top, it’s like the best feeling ever.’