Megyn Kelly Not Elected

"This is about Megyn Kelly and her spectacular implosion. She went from hottest newsagent around to being too toxic to be on air for any network." That fabulous quote is from The Kelly Collapse (out now!), written by yours truly. It's about how the former Fox News personality went from commanding $20 million per year to hashing out her exit deal with NBC. Which brings us to the point of this article, NBC News realized what a mistake they made but not before making one more error; they were going to feature Kelly heavily in their midterm election coverage.

Before the new infamous blackface controversy swallowed Megyn Kelly's career like it was a bowl of chicken alfredo, Kelly was going to be at the center of NBC's election coverage. After paying more than $23 million per year for her and getting nothing in return except sagging ratings for her hour of Today and dragging down the rest of the morning lineup, NBC was about to experience a goldmine. Love her or hate her, Kelly is a political talking head who makes people watch. Even if they hate-watch. Then she went and acted like Megyn Kelly and now the Peacock Network is left holding an empty bag of money and wondering if they can just show a rerun of This is Us.

Why won't Kelly be involved in the election coverage? After all, her attorney keeps claiming that she's still an employee of NBC News, and it would make sense to utilize talent. A source told Page Six that Kelly is definitely “not going to be part of election-night coverage.” And when asked why, they responded that people who are negotiating their exits, don't normally get screen time.

Instead, NBC News will feature Savanah Guthrie, Lester Holt, and Chuck Todd. Because this mid-term election is so consequential, there will still be a ton of people watching. However, this would have been a chance for NBC to recoup some of the losses they took on Kelly's contract to this point and launch her into a new position.

Which is allegedly what she wanted. Word is that Kelly had gone to NBC News execs and asked that they start to wrap up the morning show, which she (allegedly) admitted was a complete and utter failure. As I say in The Kelly Collapse, she doesn't have the right personality to be a daytime talk show host. Maybe if they had given her a Sunday morning political talk show or a newsmagazine (oops wait they did!) she would have fared much better.

Or maybe if she was a nicer person, Kelly would have done better. There were so many stories about how she was nasty to her coworkers at NBC and how she thought that she was better than they are. Notice how none of them came to her defense during the blackface scandal, and that Al Roker actually roasted her on the mothership hour of Today? That was no accident and had to be network approved. Think about it for a second. When Tom Brokaw was accused of sexual misconduct, the news team went into defense mode to protect him. When Megyn Kelly made an ignorant remark, she got fired. Brokaw treated people with respect and Kelly, well the evidence is on air and part of history now.

NBC News made a costly mistake hiring an anchor away from Fox News. Her appeal was very limited, and as discussed in my book, she had shown herself to be a racist (among other things) time and time again. Now the midterm elections will have to be reported without the person who was supposed to be the face of the coverage for NBC. Don't cry for them though, there will be plenty of viewers to go around.

You can buy The Kelly Collapse on Amazon today!