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| 12/03/16 | |
Amidst partisan firestorm, Megyn is going to have to settle for less
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Megyn has reportedly lost a potentially rich deal at ABC (LA Times), left only with CNN, a network many of her current fans simply won't watch Photo was modified |
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Kelly essentially told reporters to butt out, leaves audience hanging
DrudgeReport reported Thursday that Megyn was considering an exit According to Drudge, CNN's President Jeff Zucker is pursuing her and she might agree to join CNN. The report indicates that Zucker would promote her across all Time-Warner platforms and she may have the chance to compete directly with Bill O'Reilly. Also according to DrudgeReport, she is "despised" by her peers at Fox News and it has only worsened since the release of her book. The LA Times reported that Bill O'Reilly has said that her book harmed the Fox News Channel by unnecessarily bringing up the Roger Ailes sexual harassment case. Megyn Kelly's ratings are not keeping pace with her counterparts In recent weeks, Megyn Kelly's ratings have suffered. She has finished as badly as fifth place on Fox News, trailing Hannity, O'Reilly, Special Report and the Five. Tucker Carlson's new show has also debuted to phenomenal ratings at 7 o'clock. It is unclear whether Kelly might be feeling the heat due to her various counterparts' success. With her 9 o'clock slot, she has every reason to have high ratings because of O'Reilly's big lead in. She has also been billed as the future of the network and the networks "biggest star." Presumably the network's biggest star should not finish fifth place in the ratings. Kelly may have been auditioning for a jump for some time Kelly has been antagonizing Trump for over a year and a half and it's plausible to hypothesize that she calculated that as part of her move. Perhaps she reasoned that she would become a hero to the left for railing against Trump and leverage that into a prime spot at a liberal network (any network other than FNC). Recently she was criticized for "auditioning" for other jobs after she accused Trump of being a "sexual predator" in an apparent attempt to create a clash with Newt Gingrich, an iconoclast toward the media. Vanity Fair described the conflict this way, "She positively eviscerated Newt Gingrich last month when he told her she was 'fascinated by sex' for covering the sexual-assault allegations made against Trump." Kelly is not drawing competitive offers after Drudge's report The LA Times is also reporting that Megyn is considering her options. She is currently making $15 million a year and that is seemingly not enough to keep her happy at FNC. Unfortunately, according tot he LA Times, nobody out there is willing to pay that amount. CNN does not pay that much for on-air talent and NBC or MSNBC do not seem to be interested. The LA Times has also reported that ABC may have been interested in putting her on Good Morning |
America, but has lost interest since the report of her search surfaced on the DrudgeReport. There might be no worse time for Kelly to move to CNN
CNN has received enormous criticism for its extraordinarily unfair coverage of the presidential campaign, In a country where about half the people voted for Trump, CNN treated Trump like a monstrous racist deserving of nothing but condemnation. The criticism has had its impact on CNN as it has repeatedly finished behind MSNBC in ratings. CNN's coverage frequently featured harsh condemnations of Trump and his defenders, most notably Van Jones attacking Trump supporters calling his election the result of a "whitelash." Trump reportedly dressed down CNN President Jeff Zucker over the harsh coverage in the election. There is no sign of CNN learning how to cover news objectively in this post-Obama environment. CNN's most recent foray into extreme bias featured a CNN producer joking about the newly elected incoming president crashing and a CNN reporter laughing at the suggestion. One should assume that Kelly would lose a big chunk of her more conservative audience if she jumps to CNN. Bad for her. Bad for CNN. Bad for the deal. But can she stay at Fox? Has Kelly already burned her bridge at Fox and with once loyal fans? As mentioned previously in this article, Kelly's ratings have suffered, likely as a result of her very public battle with Trump and other conservatives. With her interest in leaving the network now being widely reported, and the fact that taking less money is apparently not a deal breaker, it would be hard to fault anyone who has until now remained loyal to her at Fox for abandoning her. Rupert Murdoch has said he doesn't want her to leave, but he also went public with a statement that seemed like a take it or leave it ultimatum. He said, "we have a deep bench of talent, many of whom would give their right arm for her spot." Since that statement, Tucker Carlson has demonstrated that Megyn may not be that special by debuting with historic ratings, the hour up 40% from November last year. Tucker has a markedly different take on the issues than Kelly. With Kelly faltering and Hannity and Tucker riding high, Rupert's son James Murdoch may be doubting his previous conclusion that she is a big part of the channel's future. Both of the Murdoch sons are fairly liberal, but the Carlson hire came after all this started and is proving yet again that conservatism sells. Perhaps they are signaling that they took Levin's warning to heart. If the Murdoch boys stick with her, on the other hand, conservative Kelly critic Mark Levin has alleged that the future of Fox News will be in peril as the liberal Murdoch sons "are slowly but surely ruining that network." |
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