Meredith Vieira to Return to Daytime TV as Talk Show Host

Meredith Vieira will return to daytime television as the host of a syndicated talk show in the fall of 2014, NBCUniversal announced on Tuesday.

Meredith Vieira embraced her co-host, Matt Lauer, during her final days on the "Today" show in 2011. She will be hosting her own talk show in 2014.

NBC’s syndication division did not say whether it had completed any deals with local television stations. But executives involved with the production of “The Meredith Vieira Show” expressed confidence that stations, including the 10 owned by NBC in big cities, would snap up the rights to the show in short order.

NBC has been pursuing Ms. Vieira, a former host of the network’s “Today” show, about hosting a talk show since late last year. Daytime television, with its blend of information and entertainment, is terrain she knows well: she was one of the original hosts of “The View,” the ABC talk show that Barbara Walters started in 1997. Nine years later she signed off “The View” to succeed Katie Couric on “Today,” and helped keep that show on top of the ratings.

However, Ms. Vieira left “Today” in 2011, exhausted by the early-morning hours and eager to spend more time with her family. She remained with NBC as a special correspondent. (The “Today” ratings winning streak ended 10 months later.)

In a statement on Tuesday, she said that she wanted the show to embody what she called the “three H’s”: heat, heart and humor. “And speaking of the heart, I want to thank my husband, Richard, and kids, Ben, Gabe and Lily, for strongly encouraging me to take this incredible opportunity … or else they really just want to get me out of the house,” she said.

Syndicated talk shows can be very lucrative for their hosts and corporate backers. But they can also be immensely challenging, as Ms. Couric has demonstrated in her first year as the host of “Katie,” a product of the Disney-ABC Domestic Television division of the Walt Disney Company.

Since its debut last September, “Katie” has not lived up to the expectations of Ms. Couric or the stations that paid a handsome license fee for it. While the show has been renewed through summer 2014, many syndication observers expect it to end at that point, either because Ms. Couric will choose to do something else â€" she has been unhappy at times with the fluffy nature of daytime TV â€" or because stations will choose to put on a different show.

“The Meredith Vieira Show” could be a replacement â€" which would be an interesting wrinkle, given the intertwined history of the two women. But NBC is trying hard to manage expectations about the show, having concluded that Ms. Couric and Disney excessively hyped “Katie” ahead of time.

The company will most likely seek out early afternoon time slots for “Vieira,” not the late afternoon slots that are typically highly rated and more highly sought after. Also, the show could be televised in the late mornings by some local stations, putting it into direct competition with Ms. Vieira’s old show “The View.”

NBC’s announcement suggested that Ms. Vieira would play up her lighthearted side. “She creates an instant connection with audiences with her smart, quick-witted and down-to-earth style," Ted Harbert, the chairman of NBC Broadcasting, said in a news release. "This entertaining and substantive show will be a great way to reach her loyal daytime fans as well as new ones who will discover why Meredith is one of America’s most loved television personalities.”