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"If you can&amp;apos;t beat &amp;apos;em, join &amp;apos;em! After months of watching his public image take a steady downward spiral, Matt Lauer stepped up to show the world -- or New York City, at least -- that it&amp;apos;s laughing with him, not at him. As host of the April 10 UJA-Federation of New York event celebrating Bloomberg Media Group CEO Andrew Lack, the much-maligned TODAY show anchor poked fun at his own reputation and joked that he&amp;apos;s now less popular than a viral infection.\r\n\r\nAccording to the New York Post, Lauer told the audience at the Edison Ballroom in Times Square that he was &amp;quot;a bit surprised to be asked to host this dinner,&amp;quot; especially given the bad press he&amp;apos;s gotten since New York magazine&amp;apos;s cover story last month about his fallout with Ann Curry and the NBC morning show&amp;apos;s ratings slump. (The article suggested that Lauer was the reason for Curry&amp;apos;s departure, and that the on-set drama between them was &amp;quot;personal.&amp;quot;)\r\n&amp;quot;If you&amp;apos;ve been following the papers lately, you know it&amp;apos;s been a bit rough for me,&amp;quot; the veteran TV journalist quipped. &amp;quot;These days, I only get asked to host dinners if polio is busy. Yup, I have a lower Q rating than polio right now.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\n(Q ratings measure the familiarity and appeal of a particular brand, performer, or television program. The higher the Q score, the stronger the fan base. According to the New York Times, Lauer has seen his Q rating plummet from 19 in September 2011 to 9 this past January.)\r\nLater, introducing his former co-anchor Katie Couric, he joked that his reputation wasn&amp;apos;t the only thing that had taken a beating recently. &amp;quot;Katie has a way of making headlines,&amp;quot; he began. &amp;quot;Who can forget when she was co-host of the TODAY show? She got a colonoscopy on TV. Not to be outdone, two weeks ago, I got one in The New York Times.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nLast month, the Times&amp;apos; Brian Stelter suggested that Lauer&amp;apos;s longtime job on TODAY might be in jeopardy because of the show&amp;apos;s recent struggle to bring ratings up. However, a source told Us Weekly that NBC had no plans to replace him. &amp;quot;Everyone at the show hopes he stays for many years to come,&amp;quot; the insider said."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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