WHERE in the world was Matt Lauer yesterday?
Grounded in India for seven hours!
The ”Today” show’s travelin’ man hit a wall of red tape when he was banned from flying over Indian air space for about seven hours, wiping out yesterday’s planned ”Where in the World is Matt Lauer?” segment on NBC’s ”Today” show (7 a.m. on WNBC/Ch.4).
The highly rated segment features Lauer traveling thousands of miles to different far-flung locales each day, with viewers – and even his ”Today” show colleagues – trying to guess where mysterious Matt will end up next.
On Monday, Lauer spent Day 1 about 12,000 feet up on Mount Everest, fighting pea-soup-thick fog and frigid weather conditions as he visited a monastery and interviewed a monk.
But the hunky ”Today” show co-host spent yesterday sitting on his plane in Katmandu, Nepal – waiting for takeoff clearance from the Indian government and phoning in status reports every half hour to his ”Today” show pals back in New York.
”The officials said he couldn’t take off because the Indian government hadn’t given approval to fly through Indian air space,” ”Today” show spokeswoman Allison Gollust said. ”We did all the necessary paperwork … but it seemed to be a red-tape issue.”
Instead, the ”Today” show was forced to rearrange its schedule in a wild, last-minute scramble when it became apparent Lauer was going to be grounded.
”We had to rebuild the show because we lost our major component,” Gollust said. ”Katie [Couric], Al [Roker] and Ann [Curry] did extra work and we booked some interviews in the middle of the night.”
Among those booked: Danny Bonaduce, ex-child star of ”The Partridge Family” who discussed the perils of child stardom in the wake of Dana Plato’s (”Diff’rent Strokes”) death.
Gollust said it is ”to be determined” if the ”Today” show will make up Lauer’s lost day.
”We have no idea at this point,” she said. ”We just don’t know. There are so many factors that will influence our decision.
”We basically skipped day number 2 – but we’re 100 percent sure Matt will make it to his destination today for day number 3,” Gollust said.
Lauer was unavailable for comment.
”I wish I could track him down,” Gollust said. ”We don’t even know where he is!”