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

Writing for The Daily Beast, Lloyd Grove speculates that nerves are raw over at NBC, as former Fox star Megyn Kelly prepares to launch her 9am extension of the 'Today' show. Kelly's summer news magazine show was cancelled due to poor ratings and the reasons may be multiple. 

Personally, I loved her segment on Faye Cuevas bringing her military-background, higher intelligence to Africa's war on elephant poaching. Given the response from the Sandy Hook Elementary School families to her interview with conspiracy monger and top adviser to Donald Trump Alex Jones, Kelly made have made a miscalculation as to what a non-Fox audience was willing to watch. When parents of dead children gunned down in Connecticut make a national appeal to boycott Kelly's Alex Jones feature, she has a problem on her hands. Clearly, the interview did nothing to appeal to the more moderate audience of NBC and may have hardened people against her 

The vitriol against Kelly is pretty intense among progressives. There is no forgive and forget; no open one's mind to a broader perspective, as MSNBC is doing very successfully with its influx of never-Trump Republicans hosts and commentators. The network has made major inroads against Fox, but continues to trail in prime time although both Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell rank in the Top 5 at night, with Rachel in the prime spot in all cable news two months running.  MSNBC did lead Fox in the coveted 18-49 age group.

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.

If Tamron Hall ends up going head-to-head with Megyn Kelly, it could be a challenge, especially in keeping the Today Show's people of color audience, who love Hall along with plenty of progressive white women.