Some said the writing was on the wall from the first time she clashed with then candidate Donald Trump at the first 2016 Campaign Presidential debate, but now it’s official. Megyn Kelly is done at FOX and headed over to rival NBC.
The move for Kelly is both an affirmation and a test. Her new gig will include both a daytime show and a Sunday news magazine program. The latter format will be somewhat closer to her former nightly news program, but neither of the new gigs will have the constraints – or the built-in audience of her former FOX show.
On FOX, Kelly had a bit of ideological wiggle room, but being broadcast before or between Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity forced her producers to keep the content within the margin of error for the largely conservative viewership.
That was fine when Kelly was getting under liberals’ nerves for castigating President Obama or insisting that Santa Claus was white, but when she started going after Trump, the base of the GOP turned on her, quickly and loudly calling for her to be fired … or worse.
Bucking that trend and their audience, FOX telegraphed a commitment to make Kelly their top personality at the network, even sticking with her through a brief but heated tiff with fellow FOX superstar, Hannity. Still, Kelly jumped ship.
It’s an interesting career decision. While she had a built-in fan base at FOX, much of that base was disgruntled with what some considered her “betrayal” of their biases. It was also becoming increasingly clear that Kelly was not quite in line with the decision makers at the network, whose declared bread and butter are on the right end of the right side of the political spectrum.
Kelly, despite her feuds with Stephen Colbert and her scrapes with liberal guests, is more center-right than just about any big personality on the network not named Shepard Smith. But she is still center-right … not exactly the most popular description of the more popular NBC personalities.
In the great pantheon of media sources, FOX and MSNBC are often considered two sides of the coin, news from polar opposite perspectives. Kelly is going from being a center-right pundit and host on a network of far-right fans to a center-right host and anchor on a network known for being far left.
There are some intriguing possibilities here. For NBC, this could be about adding star power to their lineup. Or, it could be the network’s attempt to regain some of the ground – and trust – the media gave up in the last election cycle.
Elie Hirschfeld is a seasoned real estate developer in NYC.
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