Oh No: NBC Insider Says Network Is in "Total Panic" That Megyn Kelly's Show Will be an Historic Flop

Yeah, I said "an historic," and yeah, I knew it would bother you. That's right -- specifically you.

You know who you are.

That's why I resorted to such an historic article choice.

You know what you did.

Anyway, on to the funny-fun-fun-fun:

Four weeks before the Sept. 25 debut of Megyn Kelly Today--the 9 a.m. replacement for the venerable morning show’s third hour, Today’s Take--some NBC insiders are expressing doubts, and even worries, about the network news division’s plan to scrap a reliable long-running program in order to morph the former Fox News anchor and Donald Trump nemesis into an accessible, female-friendly personality for an ethnically diverse daytime viewership.

The network is officially chippy and chirpy, of course, but...

...according to network insiders, her new role is prompting "questions internally about who her audience is exactly" as well as a sense of "total panic" concerning the intense media scrutiny that will unavoidably attend the launch of Megyn Kelly Today, to say nothing of the need to publicly vindicate NBC News Chairman Andy Lack’s $17 million gamble (reportedly her eye-popping annual compensation) when he wooed her away from Fox.

...

"The Sunday show laid such an egg that any claims that she had automatic star power, to get people in the door to see what she was doing, have been disavowed," television news analyst Andrew Tyndall told The Daily Beast. "The stardom of the celebrity anchor was a phenomenon of the 1980s back when [flamboyant ABC News president] Roone Arledge was around. In this day and age, the shows make the anchors, not the other way around."

Apparently the network has been trying to "soften" the image of this chilly Ice Queen and the blue glare of her Aryan Fury by showing her hiking with her second husband and first children and even strumming guitar (!!!) by the campfire.

Can she project the image of a coldly analytic (and desperately careerist) "hard news woman" while also pretending to be a regular gal who likes puppies and S'more's and who you'd like to have your morning coffee with?

Answer: No. You get one main brand in life. That brand may be false or exaggerated, but it's the one brand you get as far as a public persona. (In fact, you kinda only get one main persona in real life, too, even if that perceived persona is inaccurate and misses a lot.)

So Megyn Kelly's attempt at Mom Jeans On/Mom Jeans Off will fail. Not because she's particularly terrible (though she's not terrific, as Trump would say). But just because she's trying to be a feathered fish -- a fish that can't swim, but also can't fly.

And also, because she's annoying and she abandoned her core audience for a hostile liberal audience because Fox News personnel wouldn't take her side more in a personal dispute with a major political actor that the network is obligated to cover objectively.

posted by Ace at 06:53 PM

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