Megyn Kelly ‘Embarrassingly’ Left Behind As Rest Of Today Team Travels To Winter Olympics
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January 16, 2018Sooooo, there’s been a lot of rumblings about Megyn Kelly not being on great terms with the rest of the “Today” team.
She’s the highest-paid person there, despite the fact that she manages to p*ss someone off every other day…. Surely some find that moderately aggravating. I know I would.
Now it’s coming out that she will NOT be joining the rest of the team for Winter Olympics coverage…
Some say it’s kind of a big deal.
The decision not to send Megyn Kelly to the 2018 Winter Olympics with the rest of NBC’s top team is ’embarrassing’ according to one insider.
It was announced last week that Kelly will be staying home for the Olympics next month, hosting her 9am show from Rockefeller Center while most of the Today team is in in PyeongChang, South Korea.
‘This is incredibly embarrassing for Megyn,’ an NBC News insider told Kelly’s former employer Fox News.
‘Anybody who’s anybody at NBC goes to the Olympics.’
But is it entirely embarrassing ? Because not only has this happened before… it could provide an opportunity for her to take the lead in NYC.
That decision does also provide a promotion of sorts for Kelly however, who will be heading up operations in New York City for the three weeks.
That role was left to Savannah Guthrie during the 2016 Games in Rio and Hoda Kotb when the 2014 Olympics were held in Sochi.
DailyMail.com has also learned that Kelly, who is coming off her best ratings week yet, will also be covering the State of the Union for the network next week.
Soooo… not all is lost for Megyn, though some still think the choice to leave her behind was an odd one…
NBC invests heavily in bringing Olympic Games coverage to the US, spending $1 billion for the broadcast rights.
Kelly now receives the largest salary of all of the news personalities at the network, taking home $23 million annually.
‘It is odd that NBC News would leave its highest-paid host at home,’ The Hill media columnist Joe Concha told Fox News.
People have some theories about why she’s not coming…
One of which is that Kelly’s brand of hard-hitting political journalism doesn’t really fit the mold of the lighter side of programming that the Olympics generally consists of.
‘I sense that NBC feels Kelly could be a lightning rod and distract viewers from the feel-good nature of Olympics coverage,’ media analyst Jeff McCall told Fox.
If that’s the case, Sports Illustrated writer Richard Deitsch feels NBC executives made the wrong call.
‘Megyn Kelly has as much credentials to go to South Korea as anybody else on the TODAY show,’ Deitsch said.
Additionally, if NBC producers felt that Megyn was too “hard hitting” … Why did they hire her for the TODAY show?!
Another theory is that Kelly simply didn’t want to go, and made the call herself.
‘Traditionally, NBC brings its highest-profile people [to the Olympics], particularly on their morning shows,’ Deitsch told Fox, neglecting to point out that at least one team member always stays back in New York.
‘Megyn’s ratings are improving a bit as the show has focused on the sexual harassment issue, but she could still use the kind of exposure and interviews you only get when physically at the Olympics,’ Concha said.
But Megyn won’t be totally by herself… Kathie Lee Gifford and Jenna Bush Hager will stay behind.
Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Al Roker, Natalie Morales, Willie Geist, Craig Melvin, Lester Holt and Dylan Dreyer are all headed to PyeongChang.
The 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea will run from February 9 to February 25.
