Fox News was so keen to keep Megyn Kelly in her evening slot between Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity that it was willing to pay her just about anything she wanted. But in the end, NBC was able to offer Kelly something that Fox could not, a position that facilitated life work balance. Over at NBC, Kelly will host a morning news and interview show during the week and a Sunday night newsmagazine. She will also be available to provide analysis as needed during breaking stories, primarily political developments.
The new position means that Kelly will be able to see her kids off to school in the morning and most evenings have dinner with her family, which was not possible at Fox.
Therein no doubt is a lesson for how to attract talent with young children.
Kelly has been at Fox for a dozen years but rocketed to superstar status when she got her own evening show, “The Kelly File,” situated neatly between two of Fox’s old line male superstars O’Reilly and Hannity. She was able to combine hard-hitting interviews and news analysis with a telegenic presence that attracted a huge audience. She also roused the ire of Donald Trump supporters by calling him out during the recent election campaign for his various misogynist statements. Both parties won in the feud that followed. Kelly became to Trump what Sam Donaldson was to Ronald Reagan and Dan Rather to Richard Nixon. Donald Trump got an opportunity to be outrageous with is “bleeding” statement, something that would have sunk anyone else, but just proved to be another entertaining kerfuffle on the climb to power.
Now Fox has an hour of prime time to fill now that Kelly is gone by January 6. The betting is that they are in the hunt for another female, perhaps Laura Ingraham or Dana Loesch, both who have carved out niches in radio talk and have been frequent guests on FNC. Hiring a male host is considered unlikely as the formula pioneered by Kelly and, to some extent, Greta Van Sustren before her has worked handily. And, in the post-Roger Ailes era, the work environment will be much more benign.
