Megyn Kelly's 'Blackface' Comments Leave Her NBC News Future Very Cloudy

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Megyn Kelly's 'Blackface' Comments Leave Her NBC News Future Very Cloudy

I missed this Megyn Kelly 'blackface' stupidity from Tuesday. The NBC face been on thin ice anyway, as Kelly's ratings have not been great. Her audience is 35% or more people -- largely women -- of color.

She still hasn't recovered from her run-in with Jane Fonda, choosing to ask Fonda about plastic surgery rather than her activism, which was the scheduled topic. Fonda abruptly ended the interview.

So Megyn Kelly, who already has a track record over objecting to black Santas, wonders out loud -- in the midst of this Trump crisis -- why whites can't wear blackface on Halloween. If the woman wanted to get her contract cancelled, she just delivered her own knock-out punch.

Kelly’s off the air Thursday and everything is up in the air at NBC. Rumors are intense that her departure is in negotiations. Given the outrage among her own colleagues over her ‘blackface’ remarks, it’s difficult to understand how Megyn Kelly can survive.

What was she thinking!!! Just last night I wrote a terse pushback over Instagram and Twitter outrage that Kendall Jenner was wearing frizzy curls in a photoshoot. Generally I feel that our culture has become way too politically correct. However, blackface??? Are you out of your mind Megyn Kelly? Because I refuse to buy the dumb blonde moniker, being one myself.

Megyn Kelly 'Today' Show Ratings Are Down 32% Against Last Year's Time Slot

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Megyn Kelly 'Today' Show Ratings Are Down 32% Against Last Year's Timeslot

“Not only are ratings plummeting since Megyn Kelly joined the ‘Today’ franchise, but the numbers show Kelly’s lead-in has also affected Kathie Lee [Gifford] and Hoda Kotb’s show, which follows straight afterwards,” a source told Page Six. 

Kelly's hour of 'Today' is down 32% compared to a year ago. And 'Kathie Lee & Hoda' is down 26%.

Will Megyn Kelly Connect With 'Today Show' Women, 25-30% Latino & African American

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Will Megyn Kelly Connect With 'Today Show' Women, 25-30% Latino & African American

The argument that Megyn Kelly's starpower is so great that viewers would tune in on NBC is already disavowed, 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.”

Still, Kelly has the protection of The Today Show cocoon as her lead-in. Another daytime veteran told Grove, "he’s going to have to adapt to the live audience, she will have to be more entertaining, and that will be a learning curve for her. The ultimate question is whether she connects with women in daytime.”

The gender-challenge is a potentially major one, as Kelly's success at Fox was to a primarily audience. That reality was never more obvious than when viewers turned against Megyn in her serious debate conflicts and Twitter-storm with then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. 

“A lot of people were watching the magazine show to try to get a sense of her appeal to the daytime demographic and a sense of how she would be outside of the Fox environment,” said a veteran daytime television impresario, who noted that the nationwide audience in that time period is not only heavily female but from 25 to 30 percent African American and Latino. “Fox News skews very male… I always tend to think of her as more of a guy’s girl than a girl’s girl… It’s extremely challenging, and I’m not sure Megyn’s personality really connects with women.”

Kelly's arrival signaled an exit for the popular Tamron Hall in February. Hall is partnering with Weinstein Television for a new daytime talk show. Hall will co-create and executive produce, with former NBC Domestic Television Distribution president Barry Wallach on board to consult. No network is yet attached.

Megyn Kelly Leaves FOX News For NBC, Rejecting $20 Million + Annual Pay Offer To Stay

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Megyn Kelly Is Leaving Fox News for NBC The New York Times

One of Fox News biggest stars Megyn Kelly was been wooed to NBC News by chairman Andrew Lack.  Kelly's contract is said to be the biggest negotiation since Katie Couric moved to CBS News in 2006. The move is potentially crushing for Fox, with Kelly being the second-most watched host -- after Bill O'Reilly-- and comes after the recent departure of founding chairman Roger Ailes, who was ousted by Fox owners -- the Rupert Murdoch family -- after serious allegations of extreme sexual harassment by Ailes over decades.

The Murdoch family had offered Kelly over $20 million a year to stay at the network, an amount NBC said they could not match. Kelly responded that money was not her key issue, given the problems at Fox and also the contentious relationship between Megyn Kelly and president-elect Donald Trump.

Kelly will broadcast a Monday through Friday news show, a Sunday evening in-depth show (thankfully Madame Secretary has moved to 10 pm) and participate in all major political programming and big-evemt coverage at NBC.