USA TODAY US Edition

Megyn Kelly steps onto the NBC stage with ‘Sunday Night’

Ex-Fox News star blends inspiratio­n and investigat­ion

- Gary Levin @garymlevin USA TODAY

“I’ve been amazed at the number of times I’ve cried already in doing these sit-downs.”

NBC poached Fox News star Megyn Kelly primarily for a new morning companion for the Today show, locked in a fierce ratings race against Good

Morning America and the growing CBS This Morning.

But before the hour premieres this fall, Kelly will make her first appearance on her new network in a new summer newsmagazi­ne, Sunday Night

With Megyn Kelly, due Sunday (7 ET/PT). She’ll anchor the show and report some of its three weekly segments, while others will be tackled by NBC News correspond­ents including Harry Smith, Kate Snow and Cynthia McFadden.

Kelly promises “a mix of hard-hitting pieces that are somewhat explosive and newsmaking with more inspiratio­nal longer-form profiles and stories,” and says the combinatio­n represents “a new form of journalism for me.”

She left Fox News (which fought to keep her) in January, and won’t elaborate on the discussion in her book Settle for

More on the network’s late chief Roger Ailes, or the fallout from his ouster — and later Bill O’Reilly’s — amid sexual harassment charges.

Kelly earned a reputation (and high ratings) there as the hard-charging host of The Kelly

File: She confronted Karl Rove on election night 2012, when he claimed Barack Obama’s reelection was uncertain, and sparred with Donald Trump in a 2015 presidenti­al primary debate, leading him to call her a “lightweigh­t” and remark “there was blood coming out of her wherever.” But in May 2016, critics complained Kelly fawned over the candidate in a special, seen as a template for a new role for which she viewed Oprah Winfrey as a model.

“In some interviews I’ll be hard-hitting,” she said last week, “but I’ve been amazed at the number of times I’ve cried already in doing these sit-downs, and that’s another form of me that I think people are less familiar with.”

Kelly, 46, is in Russia to moderate a Friday discussion with President Vladimir Putin at the St. Petersburg Internatio­nal Economic Forum, portions of which are expected to air Sunday; another segment sends Smith to Kenya to explore a new effort to stop elephant poaching using anti-terrorist techniques. Also in early episodes are Kelly sit- downs with Fox Sports reporter Erin Andrews and J.D. Vance, author of 2016 bestsellin­g memoir

Hillbilly Elegy, a chronicle of his white working-class Appalachia­n upbringing that echoed a core group of Donald Trump supporters.

But Kelly says Sunday Night won’t be celebrity focused, and David Corvo, senior executive producer of prime-time news, says Kelly’s experience as an interviewe­r will differenti­ate the hour: “She has a distinctiv­e style and rapport with the audience,” he says.

The newsmagazi­ne, which joins the long-running Dateline

NBC, will air for 10 weeks this summer, competing against reruns of 60 Minutes, until the NFL season begins in late August. NBC expects to return it to the schedule in March, after the Winter Olympics.

 ?? BRIAN DOBEN, NBC ?? Megyn Kelly, now at NBC, anchors Sunday Night, a summer newsmagazi­ne starting Sunday.
BRIAN DOBEN, NBC Megyn Kelly, now at NBC, anchors Sunday Night, a summer newsmagazi­ne starting Sunday.
 ?? CHIP SOMODEVILL­A, GETTY IMAGES ?? Kelly’s reputation as a hardchargi­ng host comes from The
Kelly File, which drew high ratings when she was at Fox News.
CHIP SOMODEVILL­A, GETTY IMAGES Kelly’s reputation as a hardchargi­ng host comes from The Kelly File, which drew high ratings when she was at Fox News.

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