NBC’s Megyn Kelly Problem

>Then in January, Kelly left Fox News, and since then whatever high-wattage star power she had has waned considerably. This month she’s been hosting “Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly,” an opportunity for theoretically harder-hitting coverage than what she’ll do in the fall when she takes over the network’s 9 a.m. timeslot.

>By all measures, her “Sunday Night” effort been a disaster: Her interviews have been either ridiculed or loathed by the rest of the press, and the ratings reflect a distinct lack of interest. To be sure, newsmagazines around one anchor have a high failure rate, even for respected names like Bryant Gumbel, Connie Chung, and Jane Pauley. But Kelly’s problems go beyond ratings. Her June 18 episode, an interview with InfoWars’ Alex Jones, began as a problematic decision and snowballed into a PR nightmare. Kelly couldn’t handle either the interview or its fallout.

>Even before all of this, there were plenty of reasons to be skeptical of Kelly’s upcoming foray in the 9 a.m. timeslot. Daytime television is a notoriously difficult nut to crack — dozens of shows, built around former news anchors and other personalities, have failed to succeed, even when they are helmed by otherwise well-liked personalities. Kelly has never emphasized intimacy or likability in her on-camera persona. Her style is legalistic and cool, with a brass-tacks elegance that can, at best, appear regal.

>Compare this to Kelly’s fiercest competitor in the 9 a.m. timeslot: Kelly Ripa, a brash, bubbly personality who manages to be both inclusive and distinctive at the same time. Daytime TV is such an intimate and alchemical landscape that audiences’ most beloved anchors take on a kind of mythical quality — Oprah, Ellen, Katie — who are gossiped about and scrutinized as if they were members of a far-flung family. Ripa, a master of the form, was already, in all likelihood, going to eat Kelly for lunch (or is it breakfast?). Now that Kelly’s reputation on the rocks — and that Ripa has a new telegenic cohost in Ryan Seacrest — it’s hard to imagine Kelly making a dent in Ripa’s audience.

>On top of all of this there’s the fact that Kelly has a history of cringeworthy statements about black people — and is about to debut in a timeslot that happens to draw a large African-American female audience. According to Nielsen data for the 2015-16 season, African-American women comprised 23.1% of the total TV audience in the (nearly synchronous) 7 a.m.- 3 p.m. time frame, making them the largest component of the daytime viewership base, ahead of white (16.3%), Hispanic (12.6%) and Asian (7.6%) women.

>Given all of this, NBC’s logic in hiring Kelly — for an annual salary, according to industry sources, of $17.5 million — was already murky. Now, “Sunday Night” has called into question Kelly’s capacity to do her job appropriately. The entire rigmarole with Alex Jones was a series of unforced errors: Amateur decision-making, lightweight investigation, and vaguely defined motives. She has floundered in interviews on-camera and made to look either dishonest or unprofessional off-camera. And her essential sense of newsworthiness is oddly awry; after all of the hullabaloo defending her interview of Jones, she couldn’t manage to get the segment to coalesce around a news peg. So what is Megyn Kelly good at?

>The answer is a lot more about identity than ability. Kelly’s cachet is that she is a thoughtful conservative woman — a kind of unicorn. Her demeanor carries with it a lot of posh worldliness; she’s tony and she knows it. On Fox News, her maternal concern about this newfangled world aligned her with her peers. But at the same time, her reasonably fair-minded consideration stood out; she offered a veneer of respectability in opposition to the at times crass politicking of its conservative pundits. She was centrist enough that some of the network’s most faithful despised her; her skepticism about Trump further alienated her from the network’s bread-and-butter base. Even colleague Sean Hannity got into a spat with her — a spat later mended, cheekily, on Twitter. But the division between her and her former colleagues was clear — enough that for liberal viewers peering at Fox News in frustration, Kelly became an occasional hero.

>But outside of that context — a context which magnified her strengths and talents, because of how different she was from the network that nurtured her — Kelly has to rely not on the power of contrast but on her own resources. And so far, what we’re seeing is disappointing. On NBC, Kelly is didactic without being trustworthy; patronizing without being impressive. Her voiceover suggests doom without really proving it; there’s a scare-mongering side to her reportage. And, most importantly: She’s alienated everyone. At this point, Kelly’s most virulent critique comes from the right — the audience that she’s supposed to be helping deliver to NBC. The network is presumably hoping that centrist or center-right women will eventually tune in.

>Perhaps well-heeled paranoia coming from someone who could be in your PTA meeting is not as appealing as it once was. But if Kelly’s move to NBC was both an attempt to cement her brand and a network gambit to draw a certain demographic of viewers, it has failed on both counts. It may be worth going back to the drawing board entirely with Megyn Kelly — to evaluate her strengths not just by what she is or isn’t, but rather by what she can actually do.

NBC: NOTHING, BUT CRAP! lol

Could just be that she's monotonous and really fucking abrasive

She went to my High School.
One of her former teachers called her his biggest mistake.

Will she get a desk where I can see her legs is the question.

>>151955
>Her June 18 episode, an interview with InfoWars’ Alex Jones, began as a problematic decision and snowballed into a PR nightmare.
Who would have guessed?

>>151954
This is supposed to be a problem? Her job isn't to be a celebrity it's to be a reporter primarily regardless of who she interviews.

>>151955
So Alex Jones "infamy" ruined her good image (celebrity status) just by having him on?

>>151956
>>151957
>>151958
It's about both identity and ability you superficial fucks, no one likes a hollow person. which is why she left FOX because she didn't want to be a object of desire used only for look and discarded once it's lost it's flavor.

>>151957
>She has floundered in interviews on-camera and made to look either dishonest or unprofessional off-camera. And her essential sense of newsworthiness is oddly awry; after all of the hullabaloo defending her interview of Jones, she couldn’t manage to get the segment to coalesce around a news peg. So what is Megyn Kelly good at?

What times was she unprofessional? Say so instead of talking out of you're ass. They're either mad about Alex Jones being interviewed by her because it's Alex Jones or her not denying an interview with him.

>>151959
>"It may be worth going back to the drawing board entirely with Megyn Kelly — to evaluate her strengths not just by what she is or isn’t, but rather by what she can actually do."

>"But if Kelly’s move to NBC was both an attempt to cement her brand and a network gambit to draw a certain demographic of viewers"

">According to Nielsen data for the 2015-16 season, African-American women comprised 23.1% of the total TV audience in the (nearly synchronous) 7 a.m.- 3 p.m. time frame, making them the largest component of the daytime viewership base, ahead of white (16.3%), Hispanic (12.6%) and Asian (7.6%) women. from: >>151957"

I'd say she's doing fine so far not unless they want her to appease to a certain demographic which isn't underlined. Other wise this article is an absolute hot mess of shit.

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>>152317
>So Alex Jones "infamy" ruined her good image (celebrity status) just by having him on?

No idea, didn't see it.
Can't have gone much worse than this.

https://youtu.be/DcyzNfsOL90?t=4m20s

>>152321
if anything it would've spiked ratings to have this kind of reality displayed.

>>152321
It's amusing, I would watch.

>>152323
It's funny because it's not my country afflicted by this loon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HzOqZeX3Yk

Unfortunately he employs PJW.