Megyn Kelly Leaving Fox News to Host Daytime and Sunday Shows on NBC
Fox News’ Megyn Kelly is leaving the cable network that made her a star and taking a gig at NBC, the Peacock Net announced Tuesday, confirming a report from The New York Times.
Per the official press release, Kelly “will become anchor of a new, one-hour daytime program that she will develop closely with NBC News colleagues.” That broadcast will air Monday through Friday.
Kelly also will helm a Sunday evening news magazine, as well as participate in NBC’s coverage of politics and other major news events. The compensation she will receive for the new position is undisclosed.
In a post on her Facebook page Tuesday, Kelly said that working at Fox had changed her life. “While I will greatly miss my colleagues at Fox,” she continued, “I am delighted to be joining the NBC News family and taking on a new challenge. I remain deeply grateful to Fox News, to Rupert, Lachlan and James Murdoch, and especially to all of the FNC viewers, who have taught me so much about what really matters. More to come soon. Happy New Year, and God bless.”
“Megyn is an exceptional journalist and news anchor, who has had an extraordinary career,” NBC News chairman Lack said via statement. “She’s demonstrated tremendous skill and poise, and we’re lucky to have her.”
Kelly’s Fox career began 12 years ago. She rose to become host of The Kelly File, Fox’s 9 pm news-discussion show.
Kelly’s Fox contract is not up until this summer, but CNN’s Brian Stelter reports that her last day at Fox will be Friday, Jan. 6. The Times reports that Fox had offered Kelly more than $20 million a year to stay put, but that Lack won her over by asking her what type of deal would be most attractive to her and would take into account the schedule of her family, which includes three school-age children.
Kelly’s daytime NBC show will likely cover many topics, and will blend interviews and news reports with panel discussions.
Kelly made news herself in 2016, starting with when then-presidential hopeful Donald Trump publicly criticized her performance as moderator of an August Republican debate. She later published a memoir suggesting that she had been poisoned prior to that debate, but later walked back those comments.
No surprise – with the Trump and Roger Ailes messes plus having 3 school-aged kids. She was able to write her own ticket and she did.
Megyn Kelly was the co-anchor of America’s Newsroom with Bill Hemmer back then and got replace by Martha MacCallum.
Have her replace Savannah Guthrie on Today.
I’m not a big fan of Megyn Kelly, but even I would say that she’d be wasted on a fluffy morning show. I hope her daytime show is newsy, because that’s where she belongs.
Agreed.
Still won’t get me to watch NBC but good for her.
Odd. Contract doesn’t end until summer, so she’s looking at at least a year before the newsmag on Sundays, with football in the fall. The daytime show…
More money, less airtime, fewer viewers. Figured this would be the kind of deal Gretchen Carlson would end up with.
The question is… with Days renewal anything but a sure thing… what time slot will she get?
3 Options:
1 – Kathie & Hoda’s Today Show Hour – About 2.5M viewers. Cheap to produce.
2 – Days – About 2.3M viewers. Expensive to produce.
3 – NBC takes an hour back from the affiliates – Will get LOTS of pushback.
While I have no idea what NBC will do, looks like Days could be in trouble. I know if Megan was going to ABC, I’d be concerned about GH.
Other possibility is to eliminate the third hour of TODAY, for whom they have not found a host to replace Billy Bush, and move Hoda and Kathie Lee up to the third hour, opening the fourth hour for Megan Kelly.
Perfect; cutting an hour from Today might do it some good.
Definitely a possibility, but I think the 3rd hour is higher rated than KL & H’s hour.
Days is a goner IMO, and frankly that is just a smart business decision of NBC, no offense to its fans but it is constantly last in the ratings, with them dropping not gaining or maintaining. The show is extremely expensive to shoot and this while I am not a fan of Megyn Kelly the overall deal will make her daytime show less expensive thus more profitable then Days if it gets close to the same ratings.
I could be wrong and I hope for Days fans I am but I bet its cancelled and if it isn’t then it should motivate the heck out of the show to figure out how to gain viewers.
I just assumed that her show would be on MSNBC. MSNBC is run by NBC News and her being on there would make more sense then being on the main NBC channel.
I’m worried about Days, too.
I’m still holding out for a Kelly-Maddow news hour.
Literal duh. She was trapped in an incredibly hostile work environment (I say trapped, which may give the impression I don’t believe she was in isht of much her own making, but is not intended that way). She had to move on, or her career would have died at Fox News.
Smart move for Megyn. She gets to reinvent herself. Fox News is going to see changes. Regardless how its viewed, with a Republican president in office they have to play nice. For eight years they could talk any way they wanted with the current administration. This hurts them.
Say what you want about Fox News, Roger Ailes (not excusing the harassment he did to others there) knew how to run Fox News. The execs are doing their own thing and getting out of Fox News for Kelly is the best move for her.
Good riddance. Really dislike her.
So glad she’s leaving – she’s more inline with the fake news networks rather than a more honest Foxnews
LOL, sarcasm?
I think my Fox News must be different than yours.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Political fact checking scorecards from across the board find that between 50 and 60% of statements made on Fox News rank from “Mostly False” to actual lies. Interesting definition of “honest” you have there…
Yeah, ‘honest’ was a tad overboard – what I was trying to relay was that I can tolerate Fox whereas I cannot CNN, CBS, NBC, MSNBC etc. And Kelly is my least liked host on Fox. Really, to tell the truth, I only like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson – OK? But Kelly and mouth (O’Reilly) are the worst – at least in my opinion.
I sincerely hope that this is sarcasm because Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and that big goon on The Five (I don’t know his name and really don’t want to know it) are the three biggest half wits on that station. I don’t care if your views are conservative or liberal or whatever, but how in the world can you listen to those two hacks for more than ten minutes combined and not be driven to blow your brains out. They’re just the worst.
Why do you tolerate news that is roughly 60 per cent false, at best??
Well that said it all when you only like Hannity and Carlson. Um I am guessing you don’t know fake news when you hear it.
I know she wouldn’t last there since she’s not overtly pro-DNC, Trump and bias.
Great move! When Katie Couric got that hour-long show in daytime, it was such a smashing success and led to a much higher profile in the news business. Oh, wait….
NBC is an interesting move – I thought she would be snatched up by CNN.
I am hoping Janine take over her time slot and Kimberly gets Janine’s old slot.
She used to be much more gracious. I think she has gotten full of herself. She reminds me of Katie Couric: at first smart and endearing, then sort of mean. Brains are a gift, manners are a choice. Perhaps she will be gracious again at NBC.
Not a bad move for her, although the Couric similarities are there with the direction it appears she’s going. Fox News’ news was basically down to her, Baier and Wallace. They handled themselves extremely well this election season. Meanwhile, you have the likes of Hannity being a national embarrassment.
she is set up to fail in that time slot on NBC. if Meredith couldnt make it work, or Katie, neither will she. it was a bad move, she should have stayed where she was
I hope her daytime show is on MSNBC and not NBC proper. I’m a news junkie and I’d love to see her in their coverage lineup. But I can’t imagine her doing a daytime talkie on NBC. Hopefully that’s not the case.
Wishing it was Bill O’Reily and Sean Hannity leaving, instead! They are the biggest reason Kelly is leaving! They hate her ever since she ratted out Ailes, especially, O’Reily.