Last year, Megyn Kelly was doing very well for herself. Her nightly show on Fox News, The Kelly File, had briefly unseated The O’Reilly Factor at the top of the ratings, and she was slowly becoming more popular with both conservatives and liberals alike.
But The Guardian writes that Kelly was not happy, so she went to NBC, where she was offered an $18 million a year contract to host a morning show. The Guardian writes that NBC most likely thought Kelly had a “rare crossover appeal: one part soccer mom to one part school principal.”
But then her show was canceled two episodes before its finale, and the network seemed to have higher hopes for Kelly on a morning program. Megyn Kelly Today kicked off last month, with Kelly saying, “I’m kind of done with politics for now.” The Guardian writes that it is a “profound misuse of her talents,” and questions why NBC thought it would be a good fit.
One reason why this is happening, according to The Guardian, is because you cannot be an enemy of President Donald Trump, as Kelly is, and remain above the political fray. But another issue is that Kelly expected her new audience to embrace her, but she seems to have forgotten that at Fox, “she used chunks of airtime to insist the death of Eric Garner had nothing to do with race,” The Guardian writes. The show is trying to expunge that past self, but that isn’t possible.
The Guardian writes that Kelly also does not do warmth and jubilance, like Katie Couric or Kelly Ripa.
The Guardian says that her show isn’t all bad, especially last week’s show where she took down Bill O’Reilly’s claim that no one at Fox had ever complained about his alleged sexual harassment and misconduct — Kelly herself had emailed Fox co-presidents about it last November.
The Guardian writes that Megyn Kelly Today is evidence that morning TV is not her true calling, no matter how “sick and tired of politics” she claims to be.
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