Two months after longtime anchor Hoda Kotb announced her departure from The Today Show, Craig Melvin was appointed as her replacement on November 14. After Hoda leaves the position in January 2025, Melvin will continue to work at the news desk alongside Savannah Guthrie from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.
Announcing the same, Hoda said on air Thursday, November 14, that:
"We knew that my last day was coming, so now we actually have the date. So the date is going to be after the new year. January 10. That will be our party day. So we’re gonna throw a party together.”
As per USA Today’s November 14 report, talking about his new position, Melvin said:
"I'm beyond excited and grateful. I had a lot of conversations yesterday with a lot of people who mean a lot to me. I wanted to thank NBC and the folks here who deemed me worthy. I have enjoyed just a lifetime of blessings, and this is the latest in a long line of blessings."
As per Celebrity Net Worth, Craig Melvin's estimated yearly salary is $3 million, and he has a net worth of about $9 million. His total wealth also includes the wealth of his wife, Lindsay Czarniak, who is a sports anchor.
Craig Melvin is a news anchor and a published author who has won many awards
Apart from being an NBC News anchor and co-host of Today's Third Hour, Craig Melvin also works as an anchor and broadcast journalist for MSNBC. In the early 2000s, Craig started his career as a reporter for South Carolina's WIS-TV. He worked as an Our Generation Reporter there from 1995 to 1997.
Later, in 2001, Melvin rejoined WIS-TV as a news photographer and producer. He subsequently joined the morning news crew as a reporter and created live pieces called Craig Cam. Melvin was promoted to news anchor for the weekend morning and evening shows, followed by the weekday newscasts.
When Craig Melvin relocated to the Washington, D.C.-based WRC-TV network in the summer of 2008, he advanced his career. Up until 2011, he was the anchor of the Saturday evening newscasts there.
In the summer of 2011, he departed WRC-TV to work as an MSNBC daytime anchor. Melvin provided anchor coverage for several high-profile domestic and international events there. In the meantime, he also worked for NBC News as a reporter. From 2015 to 2018, he co-anchored Weekend Today in addition to his roles at MSNBC and NBC News.
He also started working as a correspondent on Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly and as an anchor on Dateline Extra during this time. Melvin began working for Today in 2018 when he also joined Al Roker, Dylan Dreyer, and Sheinelle Jones as official hosts of Today's Third Hour.
Additionally, for his contributions to broadcast journalism, Melvin has received numerous accolades and prizes. He won an Associated Press prize for his piece on teaching innovation in 1996 while still a high school student, which was his first early success.
Melvin later shared the station's Emmy Awards for Best Newscast in 2003 and 2005 while he was employed at WIS-TV. His efforts as a news anchor earned him another Emmy in 2006. The following year, Melvin received the South Carolina Broadcaster's Association's Best Anchor award.
Moreover, Craig Melvin is a published novelist in addition to being a renowned television journalist. His biography, Pops: Learning to Be a Son and a Father, was published in 2021 after his first book, The Belle Hotel, was published in 2019. In the meantime, I'm Proud of You, his debut children's book, was published in 2024.
On the other hand, Hoda Kotv stated that one of the main reasons she decided to retire from the Today Show was to spend more time with her two children.