Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones must fill an hour of live TV every weekday, so it’s a good thing they have a lot to talk about.

In the opening week of the duo’s debut in the fourth hour of NBC’s “Today,” Jones and Hager have discussed everything from family tragedy to keeping weight off, all with Oprah Winfrey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Marcello Hernandez and even their predecessors on the show, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, stopping by to visit.

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“We want people to leave a little more joyful than they came,” says Bush Hager, during an interview less than an hour after the duo’s first official telecast together. She has been with “Today” since 2009 and with the 10 a.m. hour as a dedicated host since 2019. For the past year, she worked with a series of guest anchors as NBC News worked to determine who might succeed Kotb on screen.

Finding on-screen chemistry is never guaranteed, but Jones and Bush Hager aren’t strangers to one another. The two forged stronger ties during a past Olympics, when most of the morning-show crew went to cover the event and they stayed behind —  “just in case anything went down” back at home, says Bush Hager. During that time, the pair spent three hours each day “just hanging out for two weeks.”

NBC is betting that Jones’ warmth and Bush Hager’s spirit will make for a formidable combination in TV’s never-ending battle for daytime audience.  The 10 a.m. hour represents NBC’s bid to compete for live viewership in the late mornings, and to carve out some of the ground also tilled by ABC’s syndicated “Live,” with spouses Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, or CBS’ “Drew Barrymore.” The network has long called upon the hosts of “Today” at 10 a.m. to be looser than their colleagues in the show’s earlier hours. And they may need to be. In this era of digital media, there’s a wider field of rivals to consider, with everything from Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast to any number of TikTok personalities dispensing advice and inspiration.

This first week has served as a way for the hour’s audience to get to know Jones better. She often does a rapid-fire hand tap on the desk to signal excitement, and viewers learned her story of graduating from Northwestern University, interning at KWCH in Wichita, Kansas and working at Philadelphia’s WTXF. Producers invited one of the host’s early inspirations, Kassandra Fleming, spurring much surprise and a few tears.

“I was trying to keep my composure,” Jones acknowledged. “I was blown away.”

There may be other times to get emotional — and that, the co-hosts said, is OK. Jones says she is still grappling with the recent death of her husband, Uche Ojeh, who passed in 2025 after months spent battling glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

“In some ways, I’m living it in real time as viewers watch it,” says Jones. “I’m not on the other side of it, if you will. I don’t know if you’re ever on the other side. I’m processing it and I’m still pretty close to it.” But she hopes the audience will follow along as he makes her way. “My hope is they see that I can hold one thing that’s pretty painful but still wake up every day and look for new challenges.”

Working with Bush Hager will give Jones the chance to let the audience see a different side of her. The fourth hour of “Today,” says Bush Hager, “is slightly different than a straight news program. There’s a lot of space for personality and a lot of space for dreams and hope.” No doubt, viewers will see more as the two work their way through more shows.

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