George Lopez to Appear on NBC’s “A Toast to 2024!” Special

George Lopez is preparing for a special toast to 2024…

The 63-year-old Mexican American stand-up comedian and actor will appear on the two-hour primetime special A Toast to 2024!, which will be hosted by Today‘s Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager.

George LopezKotb and Bush Hager will help viewers ring in the New Year when they return as the hosts of the special airing on December 31 at 9:00 pm ET/8:00 pm CT.

In addition to Lopez, who stars on NBC’s Lopez vs. Lopez, others who will be featured to discuss the year’s buzziest and brightest moments are Happy’s Place and The Voice‘s Reba McEntire and NBC Paris Olympics correspondent and rapper Snoop Dogg,.

The complete list of celebrities to be interviewed includes television personalities and NBC News talent: James Acaster, Andrea Canning, Kristin Chenoweth, Dylan Dreyer, Tokala Black Elk & Rex Linn, Belissa Escobedo & Pablo Castelblanco, Fortune Feimster, Willie Geist, David Alan Grier, Lester Holt, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Iseman, Kenny Jary, Carson Kressley, Adam Lambert, Preacher Lawson, Tom Llamas, Mayan Lopez, Loni Love, Howie Mandel, Chris Mann, Melissa Peterman, Joel McHale, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Craig Melvin, Keith Morrison & Josh Mankiewicz, Al Roker, Amber Ruffin, Rickey Smiley, Martha Stewart, Mike Tirico, Allison Tolman, Julio Vaqueiro & Nicole Suarez and Johnny Weir.

NBC recently revealed its full NYE lineup, which kicks off with an encore performance of the St. Denis episode “Salamat You Too” at 8:00 pm followed by a repeat of the Night Court episode “The Judge’s Boyfriend’s Dad” at 8:30 pm.

A Toast to 2024! airs at 9 p.m. and serves as the lead-in for The Day Drinking with Seth Meyers New Year’s Special at 11:30 p.m. The night’s celebrations conclude with E! News Presents NBC’s Hot 10 of 2024 at 12:35 am.

A Toast to 2024! marks the 10th New Year’s Eve special from NBC News and Dateline NBC. Liz Cole is the senior executive producer; Paul Ryan is the executive producer; Charmian Ling is the senior producer; Justin Smith is the supervising producer.

 

Arantxa Loizaga to Co-Host Telemundo’s Revamped Morning Show “Hoy Dia,” Launching Monday

A new day has come for Arantxa Loizaga

The Latina broadcast journalist will host Telemundo’s revamped morning show Hoy Dia, which launches on Monday.

Arantxa Loizaga

Telemundo is promising Spanish-language viewers a newsier format in the a.m. hours, with the three-hour morning show replacing Un Nuevo Día.

In addition to Loizaga, the new show will feature Nacho Lozano and Nicole Suarez as its new group of hosts.

“Telemundo understands the big responsibility of informing our community, and that’s why Telemundo decided to just have a facelift, to do a makeover of the morning show,” Loizaga said in an interview.

Citing the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Latinos as well as the impact of the community in the 2020 presidential results, she said, “we understand the importance of being informed, to have all of the resources that they require to make the right decisions for themselves and their families.”

She described the show as akin to NBC’s Today but “in Spanish with a Latin flair.”

The first 90-minutes will feature headlines, newsmaker interviews and “news you can use,” presented in a less-structured way and in a “creative and engaging format,” she said. The second half of the show will feature entertainment, lifestyle and weather, with Adamari Lopez and Stephanie Himonidis as entertainment hosts. Alfredo Oropeza will be executive chef and Carlos Robles will be chief meteorologist.

Lozano said that while he would like to say that the show will “empower” the Latino community, “They are already empowered.”

“So we are going to provide the information, the argument to participate, and to of course recognize the power they have already,” he said.

He also said that the show would recognize the diversity within the Latino community.

“In order to empower them we need to talk about them, with our work, with our culture, with our accent,” Lozano said.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, pundits zeroed in on the differences in the Hispanic vote, with Donald Trump doing better than expected in Florida and Joe Biden surprising by winning Arizona.

“The thing is that we understand, and our politicians understand after this 2020 electoral cycle, that the Latino community, we are not a monolith. Not all of the people who speak Spanish are Mexican, right? That is a very important distinction that we want to make,” Loizaga said.

She added, “Even if we all speak Spanish, we all have different cultures, and at Telemundo we recognize that. So for instance, for the Latino community living in the border cities, we understand that maybe immigration is the top priority, and we are going to be able to cater to them. Maybe up north in agricultural states like Wisconsin or Iowa or Illinois, we know that their priorities are conditions of life, working for these meat processing plants and the virus. …So we may be able to provide to them more information about the advantages of receiving the vaccine or their rights that they have as employees.”

Loizaga said that the three news anchors also will bring different personalities to the show. She recently anchored Univision’s national weekend newscast, and has been living in the U.S. for the past 17 years after emigrating from Mexico. Lozano was a news anchor and radio and TV host at Grupo Imagen in Mexico, and “is very jovial and really funny,” she said. Suarez is news correspondent for Noticias Telemundoand was born in the U.S. and raised in Chicago.

“With all of these three different approaches, we will be able to provide something unique,” she said.

As Spanish-language morning shows have been primarily focused on entertainment in the past few decades, Loizaga said, Hoy Dia will stand out.

“We realized there was a need for more information and accurate information and unbiased information as well, and this is what we are going to be able to provide to them,” she said.