Showrunner: Megyn Kelly’s co-host will be the audience
The most important news program launch of the year arrives Monday, when “Megyn Kelly Today” begins at 9 a.m. on NBC. But little is actually known about the newcomer other than host and format (talk show with an audience). Into the void has seeped speculation: A recent Vanity Fair story asked, “Has Megyn Kelly’s star already been eclipsed?” while the Daily Beast reported there’s “panic” at NBC over the anemic performance of her Sunday magazine series.
How exactly will Kelly, a former prime-time star, juggle the demands of live morning television? I spoke recently with her showrunner, Jackie Levin, about all this. A highly regarded “Today” veteran, Levin has spent her entire career in network news. The following is an edited transcript.
Q: I’m assuming the links with “Today” will be strong here, and that the other anchors, like Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie, will occasionally turn up. Correct?
A: There will be a lot of crossover. We’re part of the family, and you will see our colleagues from across the street from time to time.
Q: What kinds of guests do you want?
A: All kinds. We will have great personal stories from regular people dealing with situations that all of us deal with. We will have celebrities, where appropriate, and experts.
Q: Any hard news in the hour?
A: Certainly, Megyn will deliver her take on certain topics of that morning or the day before, so it will be current, hopefully edgy, and hopefully segments that might go under the evergreen category.
Q: Will she eventually get a co-anchor or cohost?
A: No. I’ve been doing this a long time and seen a lot of different people in this world, and she is a star. She is a natural, and she does this like she’s done this every day of her career. I see her co-host as the audience.
Q: Over the summer, she did a handful of pieces, like the one on going camping with her family at Harriman State Park, that almost seem to be recasting her in some way, from the tough Fox News anchor to someone more approachable. Who is she being remade into?
A: I don’t think this is remaking. It’s morning TV; you wake up with the person you’re going to have breakfast with. What we did is show that she’s a real person: hard-working, supersmart, a mom with three kids.
Q: To an extent, she arrived at NBC as a polarizing figure: the Trump feud, then the departure from Fox News angering some fans, and the Sunday magazine, notably the interview with “Infowars” host Alex Jones, which seemed to anger everyone. Does “polarizing” hurt or help this launch?
A: Look, people are going to write what they write, but if they took some time and looked at her work and the person she is, they’d see a super-hardworking, accomplished woman who earned her way to where she is right now.
Q: Nevertheless, the press and industry speculation does seem to have been fairly consistent, to wit, the Sunday ratings were low, leading to internal concerns about the performance of the morning show. Are you concerned?
A: I’ve heard it all, but then I know the reality and choose to move on. I have confidence in what we’re doing, and we’ve been doing this a long time. Who hears the noise? The East and West coasts. I know the rest of the country isn’t paying attention. They like her and want to give her a chance.