Megyn Kelly gets big money at NBC after 12 years at Fox
Megyn Kelly is signing off on Fox News to join rival NBC News.
The popular cable network personality is joining the peacock network, where she will anchor a new, one-hour daytime program, Andrew Lack, chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group, said in a statement today.
The move was confirmed by Kelly’s publicist, Leslee Dart.
As part of a broad, multi-year deal, Kelly will also anchor a new Sunday evening news magazine show and contribute to NBC’s breaking news, political and special events coverage.
“Megyn is an exceptional journalist and news anchor, who has had an extraordinary career” Lack said. “She’s demonstrated tremendous skill and poise, and we’re lucky to have her.”
NBC said details on Kelly’s duties will be announced in the coming months.
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.
Kelly, the Fox News star whose 12-year stint has been marked by upheavals at her network and personal attacks on the campaign trail, is headed to NBC News.
Kelly’s departure deprives Fox News of its second-most-watched host, behind only Bill O’Reilly.
Her contract with the network was due to run out this summer.
In the past two years, Kelly has weathered personal attacks from Donald Trump during his presidential campaign, and last summer she played a behind-the-scenes role in the ouster of Fox News founder Roger Ailes after multiple accusations of sexual harassment.
The move was first reported by The New York Times.
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.
