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Megyn Kelly Is Leaving Fox News for NBC Megyn Kelly’s Jump to NBC From Fox News Will Test Her, and the Networks
(about 4 hours later)
Megyn Kelly, who arrived at Fox News 12 years ago as a television news neophyte but rose to become one of its two biggest stars, has decided to leave the network to take on a broad new role at NBC News for an undisclosed salary, NBC announced Tuesday afternoon. For Megyn Kelly, the shift from Fox News to NBC — where she will host a daily daytime show and a Sunday newsmagazine program — will be a test of whether she can connect with a broader audience in a different format and reach another level of television stardom.
The NBC News chairman, Andrew Lack, wooed Ms. Kelly away from Fox News by offering her a triple role in which she will host her own daytime news and discussion program, anchor an in-depth Sunday night news show and take regular part in the network’s special political programming and other big-event coverage. But her move, announced Tuesday, has broader implications for the television news industry, raising new questions about the future of Fox News, where she was a countervailing presence in a lineup heavy in right-leaning ideology, and of NBC News, which has been a longtime bête noire for conservative press critics. And it comes as all news organizations gird for the new era that arrives Jan. 20 with the inauguration of Donald J. Trump.
The move will herald a seismic shift in the cable news landscape, where Ms. Kelly had become the second-most watched host — after Bill O’Reilly of Fox News — and often helped define the national political debate, especially over the last year as Donald J. Trump regularly attacked her, at times in viciously personal terms. The Murdoch family, which controls Fox News’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, had become so invested in Ms. Kelly as a franchise that they were prepared to pay her a salary of more than $20 million a year.
Ms. Kelly’s exit will upend Fox News’s vaunted prime-time lineup and inject a new dose of tumult just a few months after the departure of the network’s powerful founding chairman, Roger Ailes, who was ousted after several women made allegations that he sexually harassed them. People inside and outside the network widely took that to mean the Murdochs were staking the network’s future on a journalist who effectively made her name by upending the expectations for a Fox News anchor — for instance, by publicly taking on the Republican nominee for president.
The new deal brings to a close the most anticipated television news contract negotiations since Katie Couric signed with CBS News in 2006, for $15 million a year. Fox News, long the cable news ratings leader, is now on course to begin coverage of Mr. Trump’s presidency with no prime-time star who has Ms. Kelly’s history of challenging Mr. Trump. Her prime-time show, “The Kelly File,” was sandwiched between the top-rated program of Bill O’Reilly — she was regularly second to him in the cable news ratings — and that of Mr. Trump’s major booster, Sean Hannity.
Fox News’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, which is controlled by the family of Rupert Murdoch, had offered Ms. Kelly more than $20 million a year to stay after her current contract expires this summer. Rival networks seeking to hire Ms. Kelly away, including NBC News, had made it clear that they could not match that money from Fox, the cable news leader for the last 15 years running. Her departure, coming after that of Greta Van Susteren, also means that Fox’s prime-time lineup faces the prospect of having no female host, potentially troubling for the network as its seeks to shake the aftermath of a last summer involving the network’s co-founder and former chairman, Roger Ailes, in which many women described its culture as intimidating for women.
Ms. Kelly’s last day on her show, “The Kelly File,” will be Friday. For NBC, the addition of Ms. Kelly, 46, may help address a need many major news organizations face after the election of Mr. Trump: connecting with a more diverse audience. In bringing Ms. Kelly to NBC, Andrew Lack, the chairman of the news division, is adding a journalist schooled in the preferences and worldviews of the conservative Americans who helped elect Mr. Trump, and whose anger so many news organizations failed to appreciate.
People briefed on the talks, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity pending an announcement, declined to disclose what Ms. Kelly’s new annual salary would be at NBC. But even a modest raise would place her among television’s highest paid journalists. The Wall Street Journal recently reported she was to collect $15 million for the final year of her contract. Ms. Kelly’s move is one of the most closely watched by an anchor in a decade. It also capped months of drama in the political sphere, in which Ms. Kelly was often at the center of Mr. Trump’s intense, anti-press campaign, and in the media world, where she became a key figure in the events that led to Mr. Ailes’s ouster. Ms. Kelly was the most prominent among a group of women at the network who told internal investigators that Mr. Ailes had engaged in inappropriate behavior. (Mr. Ailes has denied all the accusations).
In its announcement, NBC said the daytime program would run Monday through Friday at a time to be determined. It is unclear how NBC News would ensure that all of its affiliates would carry it, given that daytime television is often filled with syndicated programs. But people familiar with the discussions said NBC was confident that it would not be a problem. Rupert Murdoch, the network’s founder whose bare-knuckled negotiation tactics are legendary, offered a supportive statement about her decision to leave.
The daytime program would be a mix of news, interviews and panel-like discussions covering a range of issues, not only government and politics. “We thank Megyn Kelly for her 12 years of contributions to Fox News,” the statement read. “We hope she enjoys tremendous success in her career and wish her and her family the best.”
The Sunday night program, which is yet to be named, would provide Ms. Kelly with a continued hand in hard news. And she would be in the mix on NBC News during major political coverage. The network said more details about her role would be announced in the coming months. Though the loss of Ms. Kelly is a blow to Fox News, the network has a winning formula that has kept it atop the ratings for many years, and helped it to avoid the fall-offs its rivals experienced in the weeks after Election Day, as The Associated Press reported. And now the nation has a new Republican president whose approach speaks to the sensibilities of many of Fox’s viewers.
In a statement on Facebook announcing her move to NBC, Ms. Kelly thanked Mr. Murdoch and his sons, Lachlan and James, along with “the FNC viewers, who have taught me so much about what really matters.” She said her time at Fox News “changed my life,” but it was time for a new challenge. Company executives said the Murdochs knew Ms. Kelly was a flight risk; their offer included keeping her in prime time, and she had made it clear she was seeking a job that would give her more time for her family.
“Megyn is an exceptional journalist and news anchor, who has had an extraordinary career,” Mr. Lack said in a statement. “She’s demonstrated tremendous skill and poise, and we’re lucky to have her.” Ms. Kelly had spoken with top executives at ABC News, CNN and in syndication, as well as NBC News, but NBC remained largely under the radar as a landing spot. One person briefed on Ms. Kelly’s deliberations said that Mr. Lack won her over by starting the talks with a question about what she was seeking, instead of flatly offering possibilities.
Ms. Kelly had hinted in interviews and in her recently released memoir, “Settle for More,” that the highest bid would not decide her future; she said she was seeking a role that would give her more time with her three young children while allowing her to extend her range beyond the constant political combat of cable news. He then came back with a deal that was tailored to her preferences. A daytime show would give her a schedule that would allow her to see her children off to school and to have dinner with them and her husband, Douglas Brunt, a novelist.
In recent months, some of that combat was taking place inside the Fox News headquarters, after Ms. Kelly’s allegation that Mr. Ailes — a mentor and early champion of her career — had sexually harassed her. (Mr. Ailes has denied her charges and the others.) People briefed on the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, declined to disclose what Ms. Kelly’s new annual salary would be at NBC. Fox News rivals who sought to hire Ms. Kelly away, including NBC News, had made it clear that they could not match the $20 million offer from Fox, the cable news leader for the last 15 years running.
Her allegation was one of several that came to light after another Fox News anchor, Gretchen Carlson, filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Mr. Ailes in July. In a subsequent investigation commissioned by 21st Century Fox, 20 or more women, including Ms. Kelly, reported inappropriate behavior by Mr. Ailes. But because of her stature at the network and her once close relationship with Mr. Ailes, Ms. Kelly’s account proved instrumental in his ouster. But even a modest raise for Ms. Kelly would place her among television’s highest-paid journalists. The Wall Street Journal recently reported she was to collect $15 million for the final year of her contract.
In her book, Ms. Kelly described her decision to step forward as a painful one that came in the face of a networkwide campaign to support Mr. Ailes, which she viewed as potentially intimidating to other accusers. Her decision to share her story with investigators drew apparent enmity from some rival stars, with the resentment lingering as she deliberated her next career move. Her high price tag was worth it for Mr. Lack, who took over leadership of NBC News and MSNBC in 2015, 14 years after he had ended an eight-year tenure running the divisions. Executives at NBC Universal turned to him to stabilize the network following the suspension of the nightly news anchor Brian Williams for embellishing accounts of his time in Iraq, and as MSNBC floundered in the ratings.
Most prominent among them was Mr. O’Reilly, who said in an interview on CBS News about allegations against Mr. Ailes that Ms. Kelly shared in her book, “I’m not interested in making my network look bad.” Among his moves since returning has been to direct MSNBC back toward more traditional, hard news coverage during its daytime hours — like its cable news rivals, it hit record ratings highs last year — and away from its yearslong market position as a liberal-leaning answer to Fox News, which at times colored the reputation of its sister, NBC News. Ms. Kelly will not be reporting for MSNBC, which still has liberal-leaning prime-time hosts like Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell.
Later that day, he continued the thought in a commentary on his own show in which he appeared to question Ms. Kelly’s loyalty to Fox by saying, without naming her: “If somebody is paying you a wage, you owe that person or company allegiance. If you don’t like what’s happening in the workplace, go to human resources or leave.” In a brief interview, Mr. Lack said he would be closely involved in the creation of Ms. Kelly’s daytime show, which will run Monday through Friday at a time to be determined, as well as the one she will anchor on Sunday nights. That show will be in the vein of CBS’s “60 Minutes,” where Mr. Lack worked early in his career.
(The new leadership of Fox News, Bill Shine and Jack Abernethy, recently revamped the human resources department; current and former Fox News staff members had said that they did not take complaints to the department under Mr. Ailes for fear of retaliation.) “The thing about this that is challenging but exciting as hell is that we love making new shows,” he said. “You don’t get that opportunity that often any more, and you don’t get the opportunity to do that with a talent like Megyn.”
Mr. O’Reilly’s contract is also up later this year. The television news and political worlds were closely watching for Ms. Kelly’s decision as an indication of the network’s future in its post-Ailes era. The speculation — and it was just that — went that one or the other would depart and that a decision by Ms. Kelly to renew would indicate a shift to a more nuanced ideological sensibility. Yet the move has its risks for all involved, especially the daytime program. Daytime television has been notoriously difficult for news stars.
Over the years, Ms. Kelly, who views herself as more of a news analyst than opinion host, had developed a broader style in the more ideological confines of the Fox News prime-time slate, frequently upsetting expectations for a nighttime Fox personality — for instance, publicly taking on the Republican nominee for president with whom Mr. Ailes was friendly (upon leaving Fox, Mr. Ailes would go on to serve as an informal adviser to Mr. Trump). People involved in the discussions said that the program was not planned to be in the mold of a traditional daytime talk show, nor much like the soft-focus prime-time special Ms. Kelly hosted last May on the Fox broadcast network, which drew some harsh criticism (some of which Ms. Kelly dismissed as liberal disappointment with a friendly interview with Mr. Trump).
James and Lachlan Murdoch, who help run 21st Century Fox, while making clear they want a modern workplace environment at Fox News, have also said the network would not shift away from what Lachlan Murdoch called its “unique and important voice.” That voice continues to propel Fox News to the top of the cable news ratings in the nascent Trump era. Ms. Kelly had described her fantasy television show in an interview with Charlie Rose on “CBS Sunday Morning” last year. “How about if we merge a little Charlie Rose, a little Oprah, and a little me all together,’’ she said. “And we serve that up as an hour? Wouldn’t you watch that?”
Nonetheless, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in the fall, Rupert Murdoch said money would be no object in keeping Ms. Kelly. Ms. Kelly, whose last show on Fox News comes Friday, kept a relatively low profile on Tuesday, addressing her own news in a Facebook post in which she thanked the Murdochs and said her time at the network had “changed my life.’’ Still, she wrote, she was delighted to be “taking on a new challenge.’’
People familiar with Ms. Kelly’s deliberations said she was entertaining several attractive possibilities, including at CNN and ABC News and in syndicated television.
Ms. Kelly was holding the discussions during a bruising year of campaign coverage in which she often became the story because of Mr. Trump’s attacks.
One person briefed on Ms. Kelly’s deliberations said that Mr. Lack, the NBC News chairman, won over Ms. Kelly by starting the talks with a question about what she was seeking, instead of flatly offering possibilities. He then came back with a deal that was tailored to her preferences. A daytime show would give her a schedule that would allow her to see her children off to school and to have dinner with them and her husband, Douglas Brunt, a novelist.