Megyn Kelly’s jump from Fox News to NBC seems like it has hit a rough patch.
Kelly announced in early January she was leaving Fox News after 12 years and going to NBC to headline her own weekday news program and a Sunday night, 60 Minutes-esque show, and to appear on panels during big events.
However, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal, NBC still has not announced a definitive start date for Kelly, and neither of her shows seems to be coming together with any urgency.
One proposal is for Kelly to anchor a 10 a.m. show in front of a live audience, but no producer has been named for the show and NBC won’t even confirm the plan. The Sunday evening show, which would need to be ready by early summer because Sunday Night Football will replace it in the fall, is even less far along, the Journal reported.
It is not even clear she has departed Fox News. She has not appeared on the network since Jan. 5, when she signed off from The Kelly File. Fox News announced on Mar. 9 it had released Kelly from her contract nearly four months before it was to run out, so she could begin her work at NBC.
Yet Kelly’s spokesperson, Leslee Dart, told the Journal, “The terms of the termination are still being negotiated.”
Kelly seemed ready to leave late last year. She batted down talk that she had been the subject of a bidding war among NBC, CBS, and ABC.
She turned down a reported $20 million offer to stay at Fox News and accepted an offer similar to her Fox News salary of about $15 million to go to NBC because, she said, she wanted to have dinner with her children at night and put them to bed.
NBC needs to make progress on this because it must present its list of new shows to advertisers in May, and she would be a major asset for the network in ad rate negotiations, the Journal reported
It is highly unlikely Kelly would return to the Fox News airwaves. Her questioning of Donald Trump during the campaign – on his treatment of women, whether he would support the Republican nominee and other issues – raised hackles among the network’s viewers and led to an eventual reconciliation with the president.
In her memoir Settle for More, released last year, Kelly accused Fox News chief Roger Ailes of sexually harassing her – a charge, also leveled by other women at the network, which led to Ailes’ departure.
This also led to a spat with Bill O’Reilly, another Fox News star, who said in November, “If somebody is paying you a wage, you owe that person or company allegiance.” O’Reilly later backtracked and called Kelly a “very smart, talented woman,” and Kelly put it down to competitive juices.
“We’re both Irish. We’re both Catholic. And we’re both very competitive,” she told Hollywood Reporter last November. “So the dynamic has changed. But I really will always be grateful to Bill.”
Then there are the run-of-the-mill coworkers who told Breitbart News exclusively in December they were ready for the drama to end.
“Everybody in the building is sick of it,” the source said. “We absolutely can’t stand it anymore.”