Megyn Kelly Popularity Poll Yields Surprising Results
The Megyn Kelly-hosted 9 a.m. Eastern hour of the NBC Today show franchise continues to struggle in the ratings, and a national telephone and online poll of American adults may shed some light on her popularity or lack thereof. For Week 4, Megyn Kelly Today was down to 2.1 million viewers, and a 0.5 rating with the under age 50 demographic, the cohort which is preferred by advertisers.
In addition to a year-over-year drop, Megyn Kelly Today also continues to water down the ratings for Hoda and Kathie Lee who take over at 10 a.m., according to the New York Times TV reporter (see tweets below).
It remains to be determined if Week 5 ratings get a bump after Megyn Kelly called out former Fox News Channel colleague Bill O’Reilly and further covered the sexual harassment scandal that extends to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and others in the media industry.
The Rasmussen poll reveals the challenge facing Megyn Kelly in trying to make the transition from prime-time political news anchor to daytime diva focusing on lifestyle and entertainment.
Assuming the validity of the data, forty-five percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of her, while just 28 percent have at least a somewhat favorable opinion of the ex-anchor of The Kelly File on FNC. A modest six percent say they are very favorably disposed toward Megyn Kelly, while 27 percent lacked enough knowledge about her to offer an opinion.
As the Inquisitr has outlined previously, Megyn Kelly lacks a constituency or a solid fan base from which to draw upon despite 12 years as a star on Fox News. For example, those Fox News viewers disillusioned with her over all the anti-Donald Trump content on The Kelly File (a scenario which had its source in the famous August 2015 GOP debate) during the 2016 election season seem unlikely to follow her to NBC. Alternatively, more liberal NBC viewers might be reluctant to welcome Megyn Kelly into their living rooms because of her FNC resume. For the latter reason, TV critics may be less predisposed to give her a break, and quite a few media industry insiders predicted a difficult transition to the daypart.
That's a lot bigger than drops for other morning shows. Year over year, same week, GMA, Today, CTM dropped about 4 percent / 9 percent
— John Koblin (@koblin) October 24, 2017
An Entertainment Weekly writer who apparently watched an entire week of Megyn Kelly Today observed that Kelly is, in a way, uniting her detractors across the ideological spectrum (along with a reference to her Sunday night news magazine show that was apparently shelved for low ratings).
“…In a different reality, back in 2016, Kelly became an unlikely hero for the left – or, anyhow, a thrillingly ambiguous enemy-of-my-enemy. This is not, to say the least, the perspective anyone has now, post-Alex Jones, post-Putin, post-actually watching any random clip of The Kelly File. And so this places Kelly in a unique position right now: Many people who hate each other have agreed to hate her. Trollish right-wingers despise her as some sort of traitor; various factions of the left recall past infractions (and, maybe, are embarrassed by their momentary lapse into adoration). This is a situation that births social media gags, and it doesn’t take much to make daytime talk shows look ridiculous…”
And it is indeed having an effect on Hoda and Kathie Lee. Last week, their ratings dropped 17% in viewers, 30% in demo year over year
— John Koblin (@koblin) October 24, 2017
Owing to bad buzz, celebrity publicists aren’t rushing to book their clients on Megyn Kelly Today either, even though sit-downs with A-Listers are a staple of daytime TV.
Some Megyn Kelly foes contend that when the high-profile anchor and former corporate lawyer famously challenged Donald Trump during the above-mentioned GOP presidential debate over his past disparaging comments about women (“only Rosie O’Donnell,” the future president famously quipped), it was more about careerism and auditioning for another network — which turned out to be NBC — than a legitimate journalistic inquiry. That exchange touched off a feud that Kelly has described as “the year of Trump.”
If Megyn Kelly’s viewership and popularity continue to slide, NBC execs may have a difficult decision on their hands in terms of the status of the TV personality whom they are paying $23 million a year on a three-year contract to host Megyn Kelly Today.
[Featured Image by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Images]
