CLOSE “I’m so excited; I’m also a little nervous,” she admits as her new show, Megyn Kelly TODAY, premieres. She tells the live studio audience “I’m kind of done with politics for now,” talks about her family and describes events that have shaped her. NBC News’ Megyn Kelly TODAY 
 
 Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly prepares for her morning debut on NBC's 'Megyn Kelly Today.' (Photo: Peter Kramer, NBC) 
 
 Megyn Kelly is "done with politics for now." 
 
 The host opened Monday's inaugural episode of Megyn Kelly Today, the 9 a.m. hour of NBC's Today show, with that declarative statement. She noted that politics are everywhere, infused into every facet of our lives, and her new morning show would be far more focused on "fun." 
 
 It was a bit of necessary rebranding for the former Fox News anchor, who made her name diving into politics headfirst on the cable news channel, to enter the more lifestyle-focused world of morning TV. 
 
 Minus politics, Monday's premiere was a blend of personal stories from Kelly, an audience Q&A, celebrity interviews and an "inspirational" field piece to close out the hour. 
 
 More: 'Megyn Kelly Today': 'It's not going to be the Trump channel,' she promises 
 
 The combination is tricky, and the first episode was a bit awkward. Like any new series, Megyn has some growing pains, and that was apparent in missed cues, clumsy seating arrangements and some stiffness from Kelly, who, whether because of nervousness or her attempts to develop a new tone, speaks with a strange cadence. 
 
 And even an hour of the Today show cannot divorce itself from politics entirely. Her first guests were the cast and creators of NBC's returning Will & Grace, which, as Kelly repeatedly explained, was a groundbreaking show for LGBTQ representation on television. Kelly focused on the impact the series had on that community, except she only mentioned "gays and lesbians," and, in an ill-timed joke that didn't land, asked a superfan in the audience, "Is it true you became a lawyer and gay because of Will & Grace"? 
 
 Kelly also devoted a segment to an elderly nun working against gun violence on the south side of Chicago, an area that Kelly called "like a war zone." Chicago's gun violence is another issue that's been politicized, particularly by President Trump, but her focus is on the feel-good aspect of the nun's "Peace Garden," and her efforts to bring the mothers of violence victims and perpetrators together. While that serves its own purpose, it doesn't make the issue entirely apolitical. 
 
 That, perhaps, is the biggest hurdle. She can say that she's done with politics, but the subject is (by her own admission) everywhere, and side-stepping it won't make it go away. The show will get better at staging and timing as it goes on, but a purpose is something harder to refine. 
 
 There's a difference between choosing to focus on lifestyle and entertainment over political news, and ignoring the fact that politics exist in everyday issues. Megyn Kelly Today would do well to strike a better balance. 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2yoaoHg ||||| Megyn Kelly launched her daytime makeover on Monday with "Megyn Kelly Today," conspicuously trying to reintroduce herself in the mold of Oprah Winfrey or Ellen DeGeneres -- complete with a caffeinated, cheering studio audience -- while establishing distance from her time as a Fox News anchor. 
 
 It's absurdly early, of course, to draw any conclusions about the efficacy of the Kelly experiment. Still, after tepid marks for her prime time newsmagazine and now her addition to "Today," it's worth considering that NBC News brass leapt at the opportunity to snag a high-profile news star without having fully thought through how best to deploy her. 
 
 Related: Megyn Kelly turns to daytime for a shot at her own 'Oprah effect' 
 
 Wasting no time, Kelly opened the show by essentially seeking to reintroduce herself in this new role, complete with a mission statement and biography, which included discussing the sudden death of her father when she was a teenager. 
 
 "The truth is I am kind of done with politics for now," she stated, citing the show's objective as providing the audience a place to share "a laugh with us, a smile, sometimes a tear, and maybe a little hope to start your day." 
 
 Given that she was best-known for combatively grilling guests (HBO's John Oliver provided a montage on Sunday) before her run-ins with then-candidate Donald Trump, hope is certainly a change for Kelly. But there she was mounting a charm offensive -- fielding questions from the audience, receiving flowers from her husband and warmly yukking it up with the cast and producers of "Will & Grace," in an interview that wouldn't have looked out of place on any other daytime talk show or "Access Hollywood." 
 
 Related: Megyn Kelly makes the case for Alex Jones interview 
 
 The same tone characterized a taped piece in which the "Today" team introduced Kelly to her new gig, which simply felt like a hurried attempt to soften the image of the franchise's newest host by adding her to NBC's morning family. 
 
 Kelly closed with "Settle for More," a segment designed to provide moments of hope and uplift -- the premiere's focus was a Chicago nun, who received some lovely gifts from sponsors -- but which simultaneously promotes her book. 
 
 Kelly told the New York Times that the morning program is "the show that I was born to do. This is what I was meant to do." That sense of mission, of purpose, would only seem to ratchet up the self-imposed pressure, as if much more was needed given NBC's high-stakes investment in her. 
 
 Kelly is a polished interviewer. Yet whatever her interests and concerns about psychic health, it's at best questionable to introduce a show that so consciously seeks to create space between itself and serious news at a moment when there's such an abundance of it. 
 
 In the aforementioned taped segment, which was followed by a welcoming toast from the "Today" crew, Kelly asked Kathie Lee Gifford for the secret to success in daytime. Her answer: "Being authentic." 
 
 Based on first impressions, Kelly is working awfully hard at being herself. And as they say in TV, if she can fake that, the rest should be easy. ||||| Megyn Kelly isn’t playing politics anymore – at least not on camera. 
 
 The former Fox News anchor vowed to put aside the hard-edged interviewing style that made her famous and turned her energy Monday full-bore into the launch of a new morning program, in one of the bigger bets NBC has made on a single talent since, perhaps, it named an unknown Conan O’Brien in 1993 to succeed David Letterman at the helm of its wee-hours “Late Night” franchise. 
 
 Kelly told a live studio audience in the opening moments of her new “Megyn Kelly Today” that “I’m kind of done with politics for now,” and said she hoped instead to help viewers “get yourself through the day, to have a laugh with us, a smile, sometimes a tear – and maybe a little hope to start your day. Some fun! That’s what we want to be doing.” 
 
 The mission represents a marked change for the popular news host whose prosecutor-like style in Fox News Channel’s primetime made her a star. Kelly has no experience hosting a morning program of this sort, and just months ago was anchoring a Sunday-night newsmagazine program on NBC that at times proved polarizing. But she put all of that in the rear-view mirror Monday as she re-introduced herself to the audience, talking about her upstate New York roots and introducing her husband and mother to the in-studio crowd and the audience at home. It’s a technique that was put to good use by NBC colleague Jimmy Fallon in the opening moments of his run on the network’s late-night franchise “Tonight.” 
 
 Related NBC Touts Megyn Kelly’s Softer Side in Bid to Launch New Morning Show To Lure Ad Dollars, NBC Tied Megyn Kelly to ‘Today’ 
 
 NBC is packaging Kelly as part of its “Today” empire. She’s coming on after colleagues Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie deliver most of the headlines – and a lot of lighter fare, as well. And she’s on before Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford start sipping wine and delving into less serious topics. As the rest of the “Today” anchors came on set to toast her, Kelly offered the assemblage mimosas, meant to represent a transition between the wake-you-up coffee served on the show’s first two hours and the alcohol consumed in its last. But there was no talk of current events: No reference to the devastation in Puerto Rico, or the protests that took place over the weekend across the nation’s various NFL games. 
 
 Kelly has long harbored ambitions of filling in the space in the TV-news business once occupied by Barbara Walters or Oprah Winfrey. “Diane Sawyer left her anchor role. Oprah has moved to the OWN network and is doing a different thing now. So why not me?” she told Variety during an interview in 2015. 
 
 On Monday, she dove into the role, hosting a multi-segment visit with the cast of “Will & Grace,” the popular NBC sitcom that is getting a reboot this season. She bantered with the rest of the “Today” crew in a taped segment that had Kelly biking to work with Al Roker, and getting advice from Kathie Lee Gifford (“Be authentic!”) as she sat in the makeup chair. The show ended with a long field piece that had Kelly journey to the Windy City to meet a 77-year-old Chicago nun who was working diligently to improve a tough neighborhood. Sister Donna Liette and some of her supporters also joined Kelly in the studio. The title of the segment, “Settle For More,” is borrowed from Kelly’s recent memoir, and looks as if it might be a regular feature on the show about people trying to improve their situation in life. “If you want change, you must seek it,” Kelly told the crowd. 
 
 NBC managed to weave promotional support from advertisers into the opening program – much like Oprah Winfrey did over the years. And while there was no mass giveaway of new cars to the in-studio crowd, as Winfrey did in 2004 when she gave free Pontiacs to more than 250 audience members, Kelly was able to offer one man a free trip to California to see a “Will & Grace” taping, courtesy of United Airlines. Coldwell Banker and Ace Hardware coughed up checks on stage to help Sister Liette continue her work. Unilever and General Mills were among the sponsors running multiple commercials during Kelly’s debut. 
 
 Daytime TV is notoriously difficult, and reliable operatives including Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric and Meredith Vieira have faced headwinds in their attempts to launch programs similar to Kelly’s. NBC is clearly hoping the force of her personality and an inspirational backstory lend the host an edge – not the polarizing kind – with a broader audience that it was reaching with the previous inhabitant of the 9 a.m. timeslot. 
 
 Will Kelly be able to maintain the lighter, inspirational tone of her debut in a swirling news cycle that seems utterly consumed with politics and cultural clashes? Will she want to bring her hard-news chops to bear now and again? The magic of a morning program is that it always has another broadcast waiting in the wings that might allow its host to try those ideas out. ||||| Kelly's much-anticipated new show, 'Megyn Kelly Today,' debuted Monday. 
 
 Megyn Kelly, in a series of prelaunch interviews, has been very clear about the show she wants to run every day at 9 a.m. on NBC — one that's light on politics but heavy on inspiration and fun. She followed through on that early vision with the Monday morning launch of Megyn Kelly Today, which replaces the 9 a.m. hour of Today. 
 
 "As you heard, we have the entire cast of Will & Grace live, along with the show creator," Kelly told her live studio audience. "And then we'll be dissecting the latest tweet from President Trump! Oh, wait! We will not be doing that. The truth is, I’m kind of done with politics for now. I know. You know why, right? We all felt it, it's everywhere. And it's just gotten so dark." 
 
 The first episode of the show felt like something of a coming-out party for the new, warmer Kelly. 
 
 Her mother was in attendance, as was her husband, who came out from the audience and gave her a bouquet of roses. Kelly said her husband, unlike her, is "not a TV person" and "likes his privacy." 
 
 Kelly began the show by talking about her background and telling the story of losing her father to a heart attack at the age of 15. "We didn't have a lot of money, but we did have a lot of love and a ton of honesty," the former Fox News anchor said. 
 
 Kelly also received a very warm welcome from the entire Today show family. In a taped segment, she rode a tandem bike to work with Al Roker and cooked an omelet with Matt Lauer, who earnestly seemed excited to have Kelly as a colleague. "I wish you success, honey," 10 a.m. co-host Kathie Lee Gifford told her. "Mostly, I wish you joy." 
 
 Later, the cast of Today came out and held a mimosa toast to Kelly, who had said in a New York Times story last week that "if you had to put a drink on my show, it would be a mimosa." Lauer led the toast, and said, "Here's the newest addition to our family. Here's to many happy mornings. Here's to Megyn Kelly Today." 
 
 Kelly interviewed the entire cast of the rebooted NBC show Will & Grace, and, like a good morning show host, asked at many points, "What did that feel like?" In another dose of corporate synergy, Kelly will have the cast of This Is Us on Tuesday morning's show. ||||| CLOSE “I’m so excited; I’m also a little nervous,” she admits as her new show, Megyn Kelly TODAY, premieres. She tells the live studio audience “I’m kind of done with politics for now,” talks about her family and describes events that have shaped her. NBC News’ Megyn Kelly TODAY 
 
 Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly prepares for her morning debut on NBC's 'Megyn Kelly Today.' (Photo: Peter Kramer, NBC) 
 
 Megyn Kelly called her new morning show a work in progress, but she may need to show marked improvement to justify her NBC price tag. 
 
 The former Fox News anchor's Megyn Kelly Today, which premiered Sept. 25, averaged 2.5 million viewers for her first full week, according to Nielsen estimates. That's down 12% from results for Today's 9 a.m. ET/PT hour in the same week last year, in the midst of the election campaign — when Al Roker, Tamron Hall and Billy Bush were anchoring — and down a steep 24% among core news viewers ages 25 to 54. 
 
 The good news: After starting with 2.9 million on Monday and dipping to 2.3 million by Wednesday, she leveled off there for the remainder of the week. 
 
 More: 'Megyn Kelly Today': 'It's not going to be the Trump channel,' she promises 
 
 Premiere-week ratings for the syndicated Live with Kelly and Ryan, which airs opposite Megyn on many ABC stations, are not yet available. But Megyn Kelly Today's lead-in, the 8 a.m. hour of Today, was off a smaller 8%, to 3.7 million, ranking second to ABC's Good Morning America (also down), after tying it in the same week last year. And Today's 10 a.m. hour, starring Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, was down 7%, to 1.8 million. 
 
 NBC will be hard-pressed to justify Kelly's estimated $17 million salary when her lesser-paid predecessors had more viewers, and her summer magazine series regularly ranked third in its time slot behind repeats of 60 Minutes and America's Funniest Videos. 
 
 But NBC News president Noah Oppenheim told USA TODAY, before the morning show premiered, that he'd exhibit patience: "Launching a TV show is a hard thing to do, and we're certainly not naïve about that." 
 
 Critics pounced on what they called Kelly's missteps in her first days on the air. 
 
 'Will & Grace' star Debra Messing, center, says she was "dismayed" by a question host Megyn Kelly asked a gay fan of the show. (Photo: Nathan Congleton/NBC) 
 
 She cheerily told a Will & Grace fan on Monday's premiere that "the gay thing is going to work out great" for him, leading the NBC comedy's star Debra Messing to later say she regretted agreeing to appear on the show with her castmates. 
 
 On Wednesday, Kelly asked Jane Fonda about her plastic surgery, as the flummoxed 79-year-old actress, sitting next to Robert Redford, said, "We really want to talk about that now?" 
 
 And this week, she generated more headlines after she cut off Tom Brokaw mid-sentence during his impassioned speech about the National Rifle Association, in a panel discussion that followed the Las Vegas gun massacre, blaming a "hard break" for a commercial. 
 
 Critics also took issue with her transformation from a sharp-elbowed interviewer on Fox News' The Kelly File — where she frequently echoed right-wing talking points about gay marriage and other social issues — to her new role as a warm, touchy-feely morning-show host, for which empathy is part of the job description. 
 
 In an earlier interview with USA TODAY, Kelly said she's not a fan of politics and has long wanted to do the type of show she has now. She also said she isn't concerned about the weak track record of daytime hosts such as Katie Couric, Meredith Vieira and Jane Pauley after their Today tenures. "The more time you spend looking over your shoulder, at your competitor or someone that came prior to you, the more you fail." 
 
 CLOSE The critics have spoken and Megyn Kelly's debut on 'Today' was super awkward. USA TODAY 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2klIOsg ||||| Media ‘Megyn Kelly Today’ Ratings Not All Sunshine for NBC’s New Morning Host Image Megyn Kelly drew 2.9 million viewers on her first day as host of the 9 a.m. hour of NBC’s “Today” show. By the end of her first week, the number had fallen to 2.3 million. Credit Chad Batka for The New York Times 
 
 Megyn Kelly, the new host of the 9 a.m. hour of NBC’s “Today” show, is off to a soft start in the ratings. 
 
 In her first week as a cheerful morning personality, Ms. Kelly, a former Fox News anchor, drew an average of 2.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen, with 765,000 of them in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic prized by advertisers and network executives. 
 
 The total audience for “Megyn Kelly Today,” Ms. Kelly’s portion of the show, was roughly in line with what “Today” was reaching in the same hour before making the change, when it was hosted by Al Roker, Dylan Dreyer and Sheinelle Jones. In the coveted age bracket, the show’s audience for Ms. Kelly was 5 percent smaller than it was the previous week. 
 
 NBC hired Ms. Kelly, 46, in January. She had spent 12 years as part of the 21st Century Fox family and was a popular figure among the cable network’s conservative viewers. In an effort to keep her from leaving, Fox reportedly offered her an annual salary of $20 million, but to no avail. 
 
 Ms. Kelly’s first “Today” hour, which featured as its main guests the cast of the rebooted NBC sitcom “Will & Grace,” had an audience of 2.9 million viewers. The next day, 2.6 million viewers tuned in. By week’s end, the number had fallen to 2.3 million. 
 
 With its host reportedly making a salary of $17 million a year and a new set having been constructed within NBC’s Rockefeller Plaza headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, “Megyn Kelly Today” is more costly than the previous 9 a.m. segment of “Today.” Losing viewers, in the long run, would be a problem. 
 
 Ms. Kelly’s first week was highly scrutinized, and the early reviews for the show were brutal. She addressed them at the end of her hour on Sept. 29, saying, “It’s been very exciting, it’s been so educational, I’ve been just so delighted by the media response, which is really” — she shook her head before continuing — “no.” 
 
 After a breath, she added, “The viewer response has been awesome!” 
 
 As Ms. Kelly moved away from the sometimes prosecutorial persona she inhabited during much of her tenure at Fox, there were a few bumpy moments. The “Will & Grace” star Debra Messing said after appearing on the show that she regretted having done so. Jane Fonda blanched when Ms. Kelly asked her to talk about plastic surgery procedures she has had. And a vulgarity uttered by a cameraman who inadvertently walked into a shot went viral. 
 
 Another awkward moment came on Oct. 3, two days after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, when Ms. Kelly cut off Tom Brokaw, the former longtime NBC anchor and network eminence, as he went into a lengthy discourse on gun rights and the National Rifle Association. 
 
 “Got it,” Ms. Kelly said, adding that she had to “leave it at that, Tom,” before shifting to a commercial break. (Mr. Brokaw later told The Washington Post that he was having problems with his hearing aid. “I’m a Kelly fan,” he added.) 
 
 Ms. Kelly has said that the show would be a mix of a talk show and a news show, and it has moved in both directions, from typical morning fare — celebrity interviews, a segment involving an adorable crime-fighting dog — to gritty discussions of the O. J. Simpson and Menendez brothers cases. 
 
 NBC has said from the start that it would be patient with the show. Andrew Lack, the network’s news chairman, told affiliates months ago that he did not expect things to be “perfect” with both of Ms. Kelly’s new programs — she also hosts a Sunday evening show, which is on hiatus — in the early going. 
 
 At least for now, it appears that Ms. Kelly’s main competitor, ABC’s “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” will maintain a lead in the ratings. In the top 56 media markets, “Live” beat “Megyn Kelly Today” by 21 percent in households last week, according to Nielsen. 
 
 Exact audience figures for last week’s episodes of “Live,” a syndicated show featuring Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest, will not be available until next week. It averaged an 2.8 million viewers in the week before Ms. Kelly’s debut, with 915,000 in the 25-to-54 age range. 
 
 For Ms. Kelly and NBC executives, there was one hopeful nugget buried in the Nielsen data: The number of viewers in the 25-to-54 demographic was 755,000 on Sept. 29, after having fallen to roughly 649,000 the day before. 
 
 Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B 2 of the New York edition with the headline: The Ratings for ‘Megyn Kelly Today’? Well, There’s Always Tomorrow 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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– Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly made her debut Monday as a morning-TV host, declaring that she's "kind of done with politics for now" and instead focusing on more lighthearted fare, reports Variety. (See video here.) Kelly is hosting the 9am slot of the Today show on NBC, and Monday's show included the cast of the rebooted Will & Grace and a feature on a nun fighting gun violence in Chicago. So how did show No. 1 go? A sampling of reviews: Warm and fuzzy: Episode No. 1 "felt like something of a coming-out party for the new, warmer Kelly," writes Jeremy Barr at the Hollywood Reporter. Especially when her husband emerged to give her flowers. Kelly also spoke emotionally about the death of her father when she was a teenager, notes People. Better balance? At USA Today, Kelly Lawler writes that the episode was a "bit awkward" as Kelly, who displayed "some stiffness" at times, transitioned into her new role. "There's a difference between choosing to focus on lifestyle and entertainment over political news, and ignoring the fact that politics exist in everyday issues," she writes. "Megyn Kelly Today would do well to strike a better balance." Questionable strategy: Brian Lowry at CNN also found the debut a little awkward. He cautions that it's too early to draw conclusions, but writes that it seems NBC landed Kelly without a clear sense of how to make use of her talents. What's more, "it's at best questionable to introduce a show that so consciously seeks to create space between itself and serious news at a moment when there's such an abundance of it." Harsh take: At the Washington Post, Hank Steuver delivers a particularly negative review. "The debut was like watching a network try to assemble its own Bride of Frankenstein, using parts of Ellen DeGeneres, Kelly Ripa and whatever else it can find," he writes. Kelly "moved stiffly" and "interviewed people nervously and so awkwardly that they were cowed into giving monosyllabic answers. She also never missed an opportunity to talk about herself." Ouch.