3 hours ago ...Megyn Kelly's new deal brings to a close the most anticipated television news contract negotiations since Katie Couric signed with CBS News ...
Megyn Kelly’s 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.Credit
Jesse Dittmar for The New York Times
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’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.
Ms. Kelly’s last day on her show, “The Kelly File,” will be Friday.
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.
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.
The
daytime program would be a mix of news, interviews and panel-like
discussions covering a range of issues, not only government and
politics.
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.
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.
“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.”
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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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.”
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.”
(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.)
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.
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).
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.
Nonetheless,
in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in the fall, Rupert
Murdoch said money would be no object in keeping Ms. Kelly.
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.
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