Savannah Guthrie is to present a TV game show based on the New York Times’ hit word game Wordle, the newspaper announced Monday.

It will be the first new onscreen venture for the host of NBC’s Today show since her return in April after the disappearance two months earlier of her mother.

In her own reveal on the Today show, Guthrie, 54, said the project had been in the works for some time – but was delayed by her leave of absence after Nancy Guthrie vanished from her Arizona home on 1 February.

The 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie has not been seen since, despite an intensive months-long investigation. Authorities believe she was probably the victim of a kidnapping.

According to the Times, and a press release on Monday by NBCUniversal, Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon will produce the show through his Electric Hot Dog company. The newspaper and the TV network’s Universal Television Alternative Studio (Utas) are to act as co-producers.

Half-hour episodes will be filmed in Manchester, England, beginning in June, and be aired on prime time in the US in 2027.

Guthrie said she is an “avid” player of the hugely successful viral word game, created by Reddit engineer Josh Wardle in 2021, and acquired by the Times a year later for an undisclosed seven-figure sum.

“We’ve been working on this for a really long time, and actually we just found out in February that we got picked up and we were supposed to shoot in March,” she told viewers on Monday, according to Hello!.

“I just want to say a quick thank you to NBC and to Jimmy and his production company and the New York Times and the studio, Universal. Because when everything happened with me and my family, they just stopped everything and said, ‘We’ll wait for you’.

“And Hollywood is a really tough business, as you know, and I didn’t expect that and I just want to say thank you, it means so much to me.”

Fallon, according to the NBC press release, said the Wordle show would be “a solid gamer for prime time”.

He said: “I feel very honored to be working with Savannah Guthrie on this show. Savannah has that rare combination of intelligence, charm, and warmth that makes everyone feel instantly welcome. And she obviously knows how to host a show.”

Utas president Toby Gorman said Guthrie would bring “the perfect blend of warmth and wit” to a television version of the game in which players must find a five-letter word in six or fewer guesses.

In its article on Monday confirming the deal, the newspaper said it was “the first instance of the Times associating itself with a prime-time entertainment program on a major broadcaster”.

It said it had previously collaborated with cable and streaming channels on documentary series based on its journalism.

“That The Times is co-producing a half-hour variety show where contestants compete for a cash prize reflects in part the company’s diversification in recent years,” it said, adding that its games app – featuring daily crosswords, Spelling Bee, and Wordle – is among its most popular products.

Guthrie has spoken often and movingly about the pain she and her family have suffered since her mother’s disappearance. In an emotional Mother’s Day post on Instagram on Sunday, the presenter said: “We miss you with every breath. We will never stop looking for you. We will never be at peace until we find you.”

Guthrie told the Times that Wordle had been a point of connection between her and her mother – and that in December she showed Nancy Guthrie the show’s pilot.

“Everything is strange right now,” she said. “It’s strange to get up and do the Today show every day, and it’s strange to say that I’m going to do a game show when your heart is broken.

“Nothing about that has changed, and it’s not easy. But I’m determined to put one foot in front of the other. And this is a joyous thing.”