Carson Daly has been a host and a constant presence in my life since the ‘90s. I first became aware of him with his spot as a nighttime host on L.A.’s influential and highly rated alternative rock station KROQ-FM. So, by the time he became a presence on MTV with Total Request Live when the show debuted in 1998, he was already a trusted voice in music and pop culture for me. Before YouTube and social media, MTV was the place to go if you wanted to be exposed to music you might not have already been aware of yet, and TRL brought heightened awareness to the pop princesses and boy bands of the era. You could catch the hottest music videos of the time while also seeing celebrities drop by to chat with Carson Daly about projects they were promoting. He always had an ease and comfort with the talent but could also engage with the very passionate viewers as they agreed and disagreed with him. And there’s something comforting about seeing him officially step into the gig as co-host of Saturday Today, all these years later. The Voice host expressed his gratitude to People when reflecting on his latest gig: I started many years ago at MTV and I feel like I’ve been really lucky. I’ve sort of grown up with an audience. So, if you were 18 and came to TRL, you might be 38 now and have a couple of kids and come to the Plaza. And so, I’ve just been lucky generationally to continue to work in TV, have new opportunities and people have been there with me.While I never went to TRL in person, and likely won’t make it to the Plaza where they shoot Today, I did tune in often, especially when the likes of Britney Spears or any other popular pop stars were performing, so that I could teach myself the dance steps, to varying degrees of success. I am part of that audience that has grown up with Carson Daly, and I continue to watch him across a variety of projects to this day. And although I do miss the glimpse Total Request Live gave viewers into the lives of the biggest music stars of that era, the most recent attempt at a revival and the decline of MTV in general have made that impossible to recapture. As someone who has had the successful host on my own TV screen over the decades, I found it particularly touching that when he officially added the Saturday Today co-anchor job in New York City to his already busy schedule that includes shooting The Voice in Los Angeles, he immediately thought of his mother watching the Today Show in their kitchen while he was getting ready for school. He clearly knows how proud his mother would have been to see her son become a part of something that was so important to her own life. Daly explained: Well, I thought about my mom. My mom, God rest her soul, was the biggest ‘Today Show’ fan of all time. When I was growing up – elementary, junior high and high school – every morning I went in the kitchen, the ‘Today Show’ was on a tiny little TV. And when I got this job, just being here, she was here.Admitting he teared up over how his mother would feel about his latest hosting gig made me tear up in the process, knowing firsthand how hard it is not to share such a big accomplishment with the one person you know it would mean the most to. He also joked that the other bonus of being gone on Saturday mornings is that it gets him out of making breakfast for his kids, but that they better not DoorDash as a replacement since that’s just too expensive. There are still rumors that Carson Daly will be leaving The Voice after Season 30 wraps on the 2026 TV schedule, which likely won’t die down anytime soon, especially with Keke Palmer stepping in as host for Season 31’s The Voice: Celebrity. But until we know for sure, the former TRL host can be seen doing his thing on Saturday Today as well as guiding the The Voice singers through the return of the Live Shows as they get closer to announcing a winner in December.