FNC Finally Finalizes Dayside…

TVNewser’s Chris Ariens notes that FNC is finally setting its dayside lineup in stone. Dayside has been in a partial state of flux since Gretchen Carlson left the network…and that was over a year ago. With these moves FNC’s lineup will be complete.

– Harris Faulkner will get her own show at 1pm called…uh…Outnumbered Overtime. Question: If it’s her show how can she “outnumber” anyone? Just wondering. This does mean John Scott loses an hour since 1pm was his shift.

– Dana Perino will get her own show at 2pm called The Daily Briefing.

– Sandra Smith will get the permanent co-anchor gig with Bill Hemmer in America’s Newsroom at 9am.

This comes on the heels of the announcement that Shannon Bream is getting an 11pm show to go up against Brian Williams on MSNBC and Don Lemon at CNN.

FNC’s Unfamiliar Territory…

I’d held off writing about Bolling’s departure from FNC, mostly because of what happened with his son. It’s bad enough to lose your job over something that will follow you around for the rest of your life and ruin your career in broadcasting anywhere close to the mainstream. But to lose your son the same day (which may or may not be related depending on who you read for information)…at that point I don’t feel like writing anymore about it.

I was surprised to see The Specialists get cancelled though. Yes, it all but confirmed that The Specialists was never an ensemble show and was always intended to be an Eric Bolling vehicle. But it also made for a big no confidence vote for both Kat Timpf and Eboni K Williams, whether that was FNC’s intention or not, because it basically said, “We don’t think you’re good enough to be able to maintain a show without an established talent like Eric Bolling to be the center of the universe”.

I’m not saying I agree with that. I am saying that’s how the optics of this move read. Or at least appeared to be read. It turns out there was an even bigger shoe to drop…

Last night CNN’s Brian Stelter and Hadas Gold broke news of a bigger shakeup in FNC primetime…

Laura Ingraham, the radio host and Fox News commentator, is about to become a prime time host on the conservative cable network.

Ingraham is expected to take over the 10 p.m. hour on Fox News, according to people who spoke on condition of anonymity.

While there may be one or two final details to negotiate, Ingraham has been telling friends that the deal is essentially done, the sources said.

Her new show will be part of a broader change to the network’s top-rated prime time lineup. Sean Hannity’s show, currently at 10 p.m., will move one hour earlier to 9 p.m., multiple sources confirmed.

Now, cancelling of an Eric Bolling-less The Specialists made more sense. Put the show that previously occupied that timeslot (The Five) back and slot Hannity in at 9 and Ingraham in at 10pm.

But this is really all about MSNBC and what Maddow is doing at 9pm. For the first time, going back to at least 2000, FNC finds itself in the unfamiliar position of having to react and adjust its programming based on damage being inflicted by another network.

The Five just wasn’t doing well enough against Maddow. FNC could ill afford to let things fester like this for much longer. Moving Hannity won’t rob viewers from Maddow but should bring in bigger viewers at 9pm than The Five could.

However it’s not clear to me at the moment that this will be enough. Sure it makes FNC more competitive with MSNBC at 9 but it may not be enough to permanently put MSNBC back to 2nd going forward because Maddow’s momentum in a Trump world is hard to top.

Moreover, this yet to be announced move will give FNC the most single minded partisan line up in cable news for as long as MSNBC keeps Brian Williams on at 11. FNC’s lineup will never have been as monotone or more ideological than it will be with Carlson/Hannity/Ingraham. There was alsways one hour that wasn’t as ideological or as uniform as the others. Not anymore.

This is also unfamiliar territory for FNC. For over a decade FNC’s programming rarely changed. There was tinkering on the periphery but not wholesale changes. Give credit to Roger Ailes maintaining his vision or credit to a lineup that didn’t need to be adjusted because it was that powerful…but the bottom line is that it wasn’t broke so nobody fixed it.

Those days are over. In a post Ailes, post O’Reily world, FNC has now shaken up its prime time twice this year. It may not be the last.

Cable News Is Broken…

The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi writes about what has turned me off of cable news…

Last year was a busy one for Hank Bargine, a freelance TV-news cameraman based in Colorado. The networks kept calling as the presidential candidates crisscrossed the country on the campaign trail. Bargine worked and traveled constantly, shooting rallies and other political events.

Now? Things are as slow as Bargine can remember in his 20 years as a news photographer. Bargine estimates he’s worked about 20 percent as much as he did last year. And he has no doubt what, or who, is responsible. “The Trump factor,” he calls it.

As in: The cable networks, in particular, have devoted so much time and attention to President Trump in his first six months in office that they have little time or interest in covering much else. Cable news has been so packed with Trump — wherever he might be, whatever’s he’s doing — that stories far afield from Washington don’t make the cut.

The current Trump-centric focus is an extension of the 2016 campaign, when the cable networks drew criticism for devoting disproportionate amounts of airtime to Trump, the candidate, at the expense of his political rivals. The networks — addicted to the improved ratings that all things Trump brought their way — seemingly couldn’t help themselves. “These are very good times for us, and the money is following,” CNN President Jeff Zucker said in February.

If anything, 2017 has been more of the same — much more.

I’ll say.

There’s been a direct 1:1 correlation between the lack of output I have lacked to put out on this blog since the beginning of 2016 and the decrepit state of cable news.

Unlike Mediaite, TVNewser, and just about everyone else in media writing who has kept up with covering cable news and its incessant obsession over every Trump detail, be they pro or con, taken to absurd levels of scrutiny, I am completely apathetic about the whole thing.

To devote time to the latest Hannity ass kissing of Trump or the Joe and Mia fight or Tucker Carlson, Eric Bolling, and Jesse Watters’ hystrionics or CNN’s endless panels of too many people (many of which shouldn’t be there to begin with) on Trump news or MSNBC’s A, B, C, D, and E Trump centric blocks and squeezing six people on the screen all the time (even though only one is talking at any given time)…

…to write about cable news and its off kilter, out of proportion everything Trump does is news mantra and to do so with a straight face as too many of my colleagues have is to give legitimacy to something I find inherently illegitimate.

So that’s why I haven’t been blogging much. When you restrict your attention to areas cable news isn’t paying much attention to anymore, you don’t have a lot to write about.

Not that I expect others to follow suit. Ad dollars are at risk. I don’t make money doing this so I can afford to go take a powder purely on principle. Mediaite can’t. TVNewser can’t.

But just because I refuse to play ball and treat cable news’ lack of self-restraint and piss poor journalistic judgement as “the new normal” doesn’t mean I can sit by and watch cable news presidents take victory laps for said bad behavior…

“We’re reflecting the biggest story of our lifetime,” said Zucker in an interview on Thursday.

No on two counts. You aren’t reflecting the biggest story of our lifetime…you are unabashedly chasing ratings in a niche area in lieu of a global journalism approach. And this isn’t the biggest story of our lifetime.

But cable’s reliance on Trump is as much a programming strategy as a reflection of the news of the moment. Zucker acknowledges that the audience’s response to all the Trump news on cable validates the approach. Only a few years ago, “writers wrote that cable news was irrelevant, that it was being overtaken by the Internet,” he said. “The fact is, cable news has never been more relevant or more successful than it has been for the last two years.”

First of all few were writing that cable news was irrelevant and being overtaken by the internet because it simply wasn’t the case. It was the case for the broadcast networks nightly news shows but that story has been written and re-written going on for a decade now. Most were writing that print journalism was irrelevant and that it was being overtaken by the internet. That one may still bear out.

Cable news is more successful…I’ll give Zucker that. But that is not saying much either. I can make cable news very successful if I had my anchors all go topless. Doesn’t mean I should.

But cable news itself has never been more irrelevant than it is now for everyone but ideologues and political junkies. It is broken. People tune in not because they get informed…no they find the news faster via the internet…People tune in because they want their bubble-ish world views affirmed and for the entertainment factor of watching two sides disagree with each other.

People want to hear over and over again how bad Trump is doing on MSNBC and CNN. They want to hear about the latest dysfunction in the most dysfunctional White House of all time. They want the mindless endless speculation and prognostication from the know nothing cookie cutter paint by numbers panels that appear incessantly like penguins lining up to jump off an ice flow.

People want to hear over and over again about why Trump is getting a raw deal on FNC. They want the Hannity ass kissing, the Tucker Carlson elitist smugness, and the Fox and Friends brown nosing. They want to hear about Seth Rich. They want to know about the latest threat and outrage from the now impotent Hillary Clinton. They tune into a network full of fake news journalists to hear people scream about fake news. They tune in to watch mindless conservative pundit-toids beat up on feckless liberal zombies incapable of independent thought.

How is journalism served by any of this?

It’s not. And no amount of chest beating and self-crowing by Jeff Zucker is going to change that…not to mention this bit of self-serving banality from Phil Griffin…

“We try to squeeze in major stories that need to be told,” MSNBC President Phil Griffin said Thursday, “but there is one story that is dominating.” Besides, he adds, “We don’t want to do 20 stories with drive-by reporting. [Cable news] is much better when it picks a few and goes deep, looking at it from all sides.”

Or, in MSNBC’s case, picks one with a few variations on the one, and drones on about it ad nauseam.

There is one story that is dominating because you decided to make it dominate. This self-fulfilling prophecy that is the Trump phenomenon has always been a media generated issue. The supply has always come before the demand.

Most of the White House’s daily briefings have been devoid of real news value and yet cable news has covered them live far more times in the past six months than ever before in a similar timeframe. Not for the news. For the entertainment value.

Journalism works best when it presents as much of the news as possible and lets the reader/viewer digest the whole picture. It fails miserably when it cuts back on story count in order to pursue one lucrative but narrow demographic.

I haven’t seen cable news lose itself this badly and fail the viewer so utterly since the Florida recount. In that case, as with this one, cable news took a legitimate story of national import and perverted the hell out of it, losing all perspective and judgement while turning it into a spectacle designed to entertain rather than meaningfully inform.

For 40 something days we were inundated with images and words that we have since long forgotten.

We are due for at least another three and a half years of off kilter Trump coverage on all three cable news networks. Have a nice day…

Sloppy, sloppy…

The Cut’s Amy Larocca writes the latest “There are a lot of blondes on FNC!” story…

Normally I wouldn’t give a story like this the time of day. Yes, there are more contractual employees in key on air journalism positions on FNC who are blonde than there are on all the other channels combined. And though that ratio of blonde to non-blonde has gone down the past 10 years it’s still large enough that only a blind person would deny the prevalence. Or, if you want to be generous, the coincidence.

So the story on its face is not worth my time. What is worth my time is how the writer and the site’s art team has stacked the deck against FNC.

Take a look at the first image in the article. There’s sooo much wrong with it…

– Everyone’s hair has been colorized to the same monotone color. Jenna Lee may be a blonde…in a dark blonde sort of way…but she’s not THAT blonde!

Update: Ok, she’s a redhead. That’s what I thought but some of these images didn’t look very red…and I got fooled.

– Page Hopkins? Gee, couldn’t you get examples who have worked at the network in the past four years?

– Katherine Timpf, Lis Wiehl, Margaret Hoover, etc… – Gee pad out your image with contractual analysts and contributors, why don’t ya?

And then there’s the second image which features Rita Cosby…

…who hasn’t worked at FOX in over a decade.

I could go on…but you get my point.

The images make it out like the article is all about FNC women but the author only devotes a single paragraph to the network.

Too much Schadenfreude…

CNN’s Oliver Darcy writes in detail about what allegedly happened at FOX with the Seth Rich story…

For more than two months, Fox News has declined to explain the story behind one of its most high-profile journalistic disasters — the publication of an article that aimed to tie slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich to Wikileaks. Now CNN has learned the details and is disclosing them for the first time.

Read the rest if you want to know what (allegedly) happened.

Instant Take #1: CNN publishes a flawed story online (Scaramucci), retracts it fast, and three people are fired resign shortly thereafter. FNC publishes a flawed story online, waits a week to retract it, and so far nobody has been held accountable.

Instant Take #2: CNN seems to have no qualms about digging into the behind the scenes of a competitor’s misfortune and lack of disclosure and accountability. But when you mention the words “Fareed Zakaria” you will get stonewalled. It seems that, for CNN, not all media failure stories are created equal or merit the same level of scrutiny and disclosure.

Instant Take #3: If I’m FNC, I’m going to come after CNN’s “flaws” as publicly as CNN has come after mine.

The Bolling Situation…

I have held off writing about the Eric Bolling situation because, frankly, I don’t know what to make of it. Bolling was suspended pending an investigation by FNC after a Yashar Ali article came out in the Huffington Post saying that Bolling engaged in some rather Anthony Weiner like behavior a few years ago with a few FNC/FBN female colleagues.

Bolling has proclaimed his innocence and filed a 50 million dollar defamation lawsuit against Ali.

Usually with this kind of story you can get an idea early on which way things are headed but this time I’m just not sure.

On the one hand we have Ali’s story which allegedly has been corroborated in some way by over a dozen anonymous people.

And yet this story is coming out differently from what happened with the Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly (and even the Charles Payne) stories. In those, either lawsuits were filed (Ailes), legal settlements were paid out (O’Reilly), or a complaint had been lodged with FNC’s outside lawyers (Payne) before the story broke in the press.

But in this case it’s the opposite…the story has come out before anyone apparently filed any kind of complaint against Bolling. And the fact that said alleged photo, if it indeed exists, didn’t leak out after several years is…odd. These types of incidents usually do get out into the public domain by now.

That in itself does not repudiate the story outlined in the Huffington Post but it does make me sit back and go, “Hmmmmm…”

Just as FNC scrubbing Bolling’s name off The Specialists Twitter feed makes me sit back and go, “Hmmmm…”

…though not so much when you consider that The Specialists’ web page is 100% intact.

Update: Not 100% intact. Some changes were made. But not all traces of Bolling were expunged either so…somewhat inconclusive.

In a post Gawker world, the landscape for public defamation lawsuits has changed, particularly where web journalism is involved. Gawker’s demise has emboldened others to take a shot at cases that prior to Hulk Hogan’s legal take down of Gawker would not have been contemplated. Not that this means Bolling’s suit is meritless nor is that what I’m saying. But the idea of multi-million dollar defamation suit as intimidation weapon is a concept we can’t dismiss as easily as before.

One of two things will happen. Either FNC’s investigation clears Bolling (and any clearance better contain details as to why the charges don’t hold up) or the investigation turns up something and then FNC is in a pickle.

Losing Bolling would hurt…especially after Ailes and O’Reilly were forced out and Payne currently twists in the wind. It would permanently damage The Specialists which, despite FNC making this out to be a panel show, is really a Bolling vehicle. He’s the heart of it and if you search Twitter you’ll see a lot of tweets demanding Bolling be brought back.

The lawsuit itself is thorny. Either its an intimidation bluff attempt that will wither and die the moment the discovery process is opened or it’s the real deal and Ali’s in big big trouble. We won’t know for sure which way this is going until/unless it makes it all the way to court.

The lawsuit may actually complicate matters for the network. It would be particularly bad if FNC let Bolling back on the air but the defamation suit went ahead and Bolling lost after evidence came out in court refuting Bolling’s denials. That would put FNC in a bind. This possibility is one reason the investigation may take a long time to resolve itself because FNC may wait to see what happens with the court case.

Dana Klinghoffer to NBC News PR

TVNewser’s Chris Ariens writes that Dana Klinghoffer, formerly with FNC PR, is joining NBC to handle PR for Megyn Kelly’s upcoming weekday show, among other things…

Dana Klinghoffer, who spent her entire professional career in the Fox News PR shop, is joining NBC News, TVNewser has learned.

Klinghoffer will oversee public relations for Megyn Kelly‘s new 9 a.m. hour of the Today show, as well as other PR duties. Klinghoffer left Fox News several months ago and has since married and was taking some time off before jumping back into the TV news game.

I normally wouldn’t write about this, despite the FNC angle, because it doesn’t really involve cable news. But this is not your typical movement story. If memory serves, Klinghoffer was essentially the #2 at FNC PR behind Irena Briganti. Her exit from FNC should have made news but apparently it went under everyone’s radar and that’s not easy to pull off.

But it’s a lot of PR firepower to bring to Kelly’s show. Don’t underestimate the comfort factor at play here. NBC could have easily put Kelly with its regular Today PR team but it probably wouldn’t click as well as bringing Klinghoffer in would.

There will be some who look at this move sideways as the latest example of NBC playing favorites with Kelly. To that I say…well YEAH…they just shelled out big bucks to bring her over from FOX…they better be doing whatever it takes to try and make it work. If bringing in Klinghoffer helps make it work, so much the better…

Bye, Bye Bob… (Again)

FNC fired Bob Beckel today. Variety’s Brian Steinberg has why…

Fox News Channel is parting ways — again — with Bob Beckel, the co-host of its primetime program, “The Five.”

“Bob Beckel was terminated today for making an insensitive remark to an African-American employee,” the network said in a statement.

The dismissal opens — or perhaps closes — another chapter in an off-and-on relationship Beckel has had with the 21st Century Fox-owned cable-news outlet over the years. Beckel, a longtime political consultant as well as a former campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale, joined Fox News in 2000, and had a years-long tenure on “The Five” when it aired in the late afternoon. Indeed, he was one of the program’s original co-hosts.

Bill Shine Out at FNC…

Looks like Marisa Guthrie was right. Bill Shine is out at FNC and a woman is taking the top job.

Now all eyes are going to be looking at Sean Hannity and how he reacts…

Fox News co-president Bill Shine is out at Fox News. The move comes as Shine was due back Monday after two days out of the office for a pre-planned long weekend.

Rupert Murdoch, 21st Century Fox and Fox News executive chairman, made the announcement Monday via a brief email to Fox News staffers.

“Sadly, Bill Shine resigned today,” wrote Murdoch. “I know Bill was respected and liked by everybody at Fox News. We will all miss him.”

Suzanne Scott becomes president of programming and Jay Wallace has been promoted to president of news. Scott had been Shine’s second-in-command in programming and has been with the network since it began in 1996.

Additionally, Brian Jones, executive vp of Fox Business Network, becomes president of the network reporting to Scott and Wallace.

FNC Announces Eric Bolling Program by Disguising It as Another Panel Format Show?

Well this is weird. When FNC announced that Bolling was getting the 5pm hour being vacated by The Five, I was expecting a show where Bolling was the star and centerpiece.

But my earlier expectation may have proven to be wrong. FNC gave out details of the show ahead of its Monday launch and it appears to be more of a panel show than a Bolling star vehicle show…a scaled down Five if you will…

The Show is called The Fox News Specialists. According to FNC’s announcement the show will be “co-hosted” by Bolling, Katherine Timpf, and Eboni K. Williams and the three will be joined by a rotating pair of “experts” who will spill more useless hot air than a dirigible would need discuss the issues of the day.

It’s hard to see based on this description how this is an Eric Bolling show and not just another panel show.

It will probably do well in the ratings though so I guess who cares that it’s not the Bolling star vehicle some of us thought he was getting?

Replacing Bill Shine?

The Hollywood Reporter’s Marisa Guthrie reports that there are feelers out to make a change at the top of FNC…

The Murdochs may be preparing for a leadership change at Fox News. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Rupert Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan, CEO and co-chairman of Fox News parent 21st Century Fox, have quietly put out feelers for a new head of Fox News. And the preference, according to two sources familiar with the Murdochs’ thinking, is that the new leader be female.

I don’t know if it will happen or not but this leak is incredibly damaging to Shine.

Drip, Drip, Drip…

And the hits to FNC just keep on coming. The latest is anchor Kelly Wright and seven others joining a racial discrimination lawsuit previously filed against the network. Deadline’s Dominic Patten has more…

Just three weeks after a trio of African-American employees of Fox News Channel filed an amended complaint of racial discrimination against the much tainted cable newer, eight more individuals have joined them in a potential class action – including current America’s News Headquarters anchor Kelly Wright.

“The only consistency at Fox is the abhorrent, intolerable, unlawful and hostile racial discrimination that was inflicted on minority employees that appears more akin to Plantation-style management than a modern-day work environment,” says the second amended class action complaint filed today (read it here). The plaintiffs include on-air host Wright, Mark Legrier, Mariela Lindsay, Vielka Rojas, Griselda Benson, Mauretta Thomas, Senami Tolode, and Musfiq Rahman. Having filed another amended action of their own on April 4 in New York Supreme Court, Tichaona Brown, Tabrese Wright and Monica Douglas are also a part of this jury trial seeking move.

Oops…

Looks like some emails got misdirected in the O’Reilly-FNC split and Politico’s Joe Pompeo was the beneficiary…

The day before Bill O’Reilly was cut loose from Fox News after 20 years with the network, his handlers appeared to believe they had at least one more card to pull that might help save his job in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal engulfing the top-rated prime time host.

On Tuesday, O’Reilly and his legal team debated whether to share with the leadership of parent company 21st Century Fox an April 13 email from Mary Pat Bonner, a Democratic fundraiser and ally of the liberal watchdog group Media Matters, which had spearheaded what she called an “advertiser education campaign” to get advertisers to pull out of O’Reilly’s 8 p.m. nightly broadcast, “The O’Reilly Factor.”

The email, whose recipients’ names were redacted in the version that was shared with POLITICO, announced two conference calls — originally scheduled for this Thursday and Friday — with Media Matters President Angelo Carusone. The purpose was to discuss “the success of the campaign so far, and our plans moving forward.”

FNC Will Be Just Fine Without O’Reilly…

If you’ve been reading all the “obituaries” on the O’Reilly era at FNC – and you would have to be living under a rock to avoid them – you’d think losing O’Reilly is a huge loss.

It might have been at one time but it hasn’t been the case for a while now.

The world (and by extension FNC) reached peak O’Reilly 11 years ago. His ratings now may be higher than 11 years ago but in terms of brand and perception, Bill O’Reilly was the top dog and the trailblazer at FNC in 2006, neither of which he was by the time of his ouster in 2017.

The world didn’t pass O’Reilly by but a series of things happened which made O’Reilly look almost mainstream and tame by comparison.

I first touched on this subject six years ago when I asked if Bill O’Reilly had become passe. In that article I noted that Glenn Beck’s arrival at FNC had made O’Reilly look a little tame by comparison.

But now looking back, it was more than that. Beck’s arrival signaled the beginning of the end of Bill O’Reilly as the barometer of FNC. He may have gotten the top ratings but he was no longer going to be the water cooler driver he had been prior to Beck’s arrival. Glenn Beck’s antics made O’Reilly look antiquated by comparison.

Similarly, another change that occurred around the same time as Beck’s arrival also contributed to the diversification of FNC’s brand from O’Reilly centric to diffuse across multiple talents; the breakup of Hannity and Colmes.

Dumping Colmes off the show made Hannity his own force of nature for the network. He already had some cachet but with Colmes hanging around the spotlight was never completely his. With Colmes gone Hannity was able to solidify his position and brand at FNC as the ultimate conservative base pandering homer.

Yes, that’s a derogatory way of putting it but that was and still is his function at FNC. You want consistency? You watch Hannity. You want your world reaffirmed? You watch Hannity. You don’t necessarily get that from O’Reilly because he can occasionally throw a maddening curve ball your way.

With Hannity holding down the base and Beck holding down the fringe, O’Reilly was no longer the perceived center of the FNC opinion universe…regardless of what his ratings did.

And then after Beck left there was The Five which broke up O’Reilly’s once upon a time iron grasp on FNC’s opinion center even further by providing a platform for more people to shoot there mouths off.

POV analysis which in 2006 centered chiefly on O’Reilly had, by 2017, dispersed itself to many fiefdoms. Hannity, The Five, Outnumbered, Tucker Carlson…it wasn’t just O’Reilly’s show any more.

This is why, though the ratings may dip a little from what O’Reilly had, Tucker Carlson’s takeover of 8pm should not hurt FNC financially to any significant degree. It’s why FNC can move The Five from 5pm to 9pm. It’s why slotting Eric Bolling in at 5 won’t do much if any ratings damage there either.

FNC diversified. It wasn’t just O’Reilly’s kingdom anymore. It’s why FNC will be just fine without O’Reilly.

Still More O’Reilly…

Vanity Fair’s Sarah Ellison has a must read piece on the O’Reilly fallout…

The most unsettling feeling among some at Fox News, however, is that Wednesday’s events are only the beginning. “There’s more to come,” one Fox News insider told me, suggesting that there are more women with stories of harassment who have not come forward publicly. This estimation was affirmed by two people who heard such stories directly. Others are equally concerned about the attention that is being drawn to 21st Century Fox’s handling of the allegations by women inside the company.

Rupert Murdoch spent part of Wednesday trying to allay fears within his organization. In an internal memo, he told his colleagues, “Most importantly, we want to underscore our consistent commitment to fostering a work environment built on the values of trust and respect.” But not everyone in the Fox News orbit is prepared to move forward just yet. Nancy Erika Smith, who represented Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky in their suits against Ailes, appears willing to fight on. “A couple of men close to retirement got pushed into retirement early with a whole lot of money,” she said in a statement. “Until Fox News releases every woman from confidentiality and arbitration agreements and until they get rid of the executives who enabled the harassment, the workplace will not be safe for women.”

FNC Slots New Post-O’Reilly Schedule…

FNC was quick to clear up any schedule speculation about a post-O’Reilly era…

5pm New Eric Bolling show (starts May 1)
7pm The Story with Martha McCallum (starts May 1)
8pm Tucker Carlson Tonight (Live)
9pm The Five (Live)
10pm Hannity

This is probably the best possible outcome for FNC.

O’Reilly Gone…

21st Century Fox issued a statement severing ties with O’Reilly…

After a thorough and careful review of the allegations, the Company and Bill O’Reilly have agreed that Bill O’Reilly will not be returning to the Fox News Channel

The wording of this statement is important…not for today’s dismissal but for how it reflects badly on 21st Century Fox’s original statement to the New York Times 18 days ago…

“21st Century Fox takes matters of workplace behavior very seriously,” the statement said. “Notwithstanding the fact that no current or former Fox News employee ever took advantage of the 21st Century Fox hotline to raise a concern about Bill O’Reilly, even anonymously, we have looked into these matters over the last few months and discussed them with Mr. O’Reilly. While he denies the merits of these claims, Mr. O’Reilly has resolved those he regarded as his personal responsibility. Mr. O’Reilly is fully committed to supporting our efforts to improve the environment for all our employees at Fox News.”

The original statement implies that the company did its due diligence on O’Reilly already and was satisfied with where things stood.

That is a total 180 from today’s statement which implies that the company did its due diligence on O’Reilly and was not satisfied with where things stood.

The two statements are in direct conflict with one another.

Something does not add up. Either 21st Century Fox did not do its due diligence on O’Reilly already or somehow bungled it which incorrectly led them to think things were fine…or…they did do it and decided to stand by O’Reilly despite all the details of the investigation but later on as the heat was turned up reversed themselves under the guise of doing a new investigation (which presumably would not have turned up anything new had the earlier investigation been exacting).

If it’s the former…that’s on Bill Shine and Company.

If it’s the latter…that’s still on Bill Shine and Company.

Bill Shine and Company need to answer some questions.

More O’Reilly…

New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman has new information on the apparently impending exit of Bill O’Reilly.

Wednesday morning, according to sources, executives are holding emergency meetings to discuss how they can sever the relationship with the country’s highest-rated cable-news host without causing collateral damage to the network. The board of Fox News’ parent company, 21st Century Fox, is scheduled to meet on Thursday to discuss the matter.

Sources briefed on the discussions say O’Reilly’s exit negotiations are moving quickly. Right now, a key issue on the table is whether he would be allowed to say good-bye to his audience, perhaps the most loyal in all of cable (O’Reilly’s ratings have ticked up during the sexual-harassment allegations). Fox executives are leaning against allowing him to have a sign-off, sources say. The other main issue on the table is money. O’Reilly recently signed a new multiyear contract worth more than $20 million per year. When Roger Ailes left Fox News last summer, the Murdochs paid out $40 million, the remainder of his contract.

This amounts to a wholesale cave job by FNC. They knew what they had in O’Reilly and they chose to stand by him all these years. Now a little bit of advertiser pressure spurned on by the usual suspects who never liked O’Reilly to begin with…and poof! Their spines disappeared.

Look, I am NO fan of O’Reilly. He’s been bad for cable news (though good for ratings). But let’s be honest. He’s just become the latest convenient fall guy for what appears to be an institutional problem that goes straight to the top of the network…a problem that replacing Roger Ailes obviously has not fixed.

O’Reilly To Leave FNC?

I have not written about the O’Reilly sexual harassment stories. Nor did I write about the advertiser boycotts. Nor did I write about the calls for O’Reilly to be fired. I didn’t write about any of it. I just didn’t believe anything would come of it.

When Roger Ailes got removed from FNC…things started out on simmer and then quickly moved into full boil in a matter of a week. The signs were against Ailes quickly and the outcome seemed almost preordained.

That isn’t how things played out with O’Reilly. For one thing he’s already survived sexual harassment lawsuits and remained at FNC. So any new allegations would appear to be “baked in” and not necessarily the the silver bullet capable of taking O’Reilly out. Even the New York Times’ piece on the payouts for previously undisclosed claims agains O’Reilly didn’t seem to move the needle.

And advertiser pressure? Yes, a lot of premium advertisers had pulled out. But not in my collective memory can I recall an advertiser boycott/pullout successfully result in forcing out a host. It just doesn’t happen.

For all these reasons I had never believed O’Reilly was a goner.

I believed then and still believe now that FNC can successfully ride this out without long term damage if it chooses to display the intestinal fortitude to do so.

And yet, it appears FNC has other ideas.

CNN’s Brian Stelter writes…

Fox News will no longer even respond to questions about whether Bill O’Reilly will return to his show.

A well-placed source said Tuesday afternoon that representatives for Fox and O’Reilly have begun talking about an exit. But this prompted a denial from sources in O’Reilly’s camp.

Even one person close to O’Reilly, however, said he will probably not be back on “The O’Reilly Factor.”

The original well-placed source said an announcement about O’Reilly’s fate was likely by the end of the week.

The fact that none of these sources were willing to go on the record speaks to the delicate maneuvering underway.

A Blast From The Past

In your must read of the day, Salon’s Matthew Sheffield pours gasoline on a fire that’s been raging over at FNC for a while now…

That ultra-aggressive approach to promotion during the Ailes era also extended to the online world, where Fox News employees and contractors were dispatched to do battle against not just mainstream media reporters but also against small-time bloggers and even website commenters. Fox News even went so far as to create at least two anonymous websites that attacked the competition.

This strategy of online fakery — a practice known as creating “sockpuppet” accounts, in internet parlance — was an outgrowth of the corporate culture established by Ailes when he launched the channel at the behest of media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 1996. With a background in Republican politicking instead of news reporting, Ailes infused his fledgling operation with the ethos of a political campaign. Nearly eight months removed from Ailes’ leadership, executives at Fox News and its parent company 21st Century Fox are still discovering some of the arcane structures and methods he once employed.

Under Ailes, Fox News did not limit its promotion efforts to the realm of media criticism. The network also retained the services of a now-defunct public relations firm called New Media Strategies (NMS) to create and operate a series of homespun-looking websites designed to market women who worked as hosts or correspondents in a manner that can only be described as overtly sexist.

Creating and operating the websites was part of a larger series of marketing services that NMS provided to Fox News. Bill Shine, the current co-president of the network and former right-hand man to Ailes, was the primary point of contact on the NMS account, although there is no evidence he knew of the sockpuppet sites’ existence during the approximately 12 months that they were published.

A Fox News spokesperson said that New Media Strategies “did work solely for former CEO and chairman Roger Ailes,” and said that Shine was not aware of the websites until Salon began reporting this story.

NMS employees created several blogs dedicated to specific women, including former correspondent Laurie Dhue and former “Fox and Friends” co-host Kiran Chetry, all of which were linked into a larger portal website called Girls of Fox News which described itself this way:

Girls of Fox News is a fan site dedicated to the programming genius and casting abilities of Fox News. We think the unbelievable ladies of Fox News rock! They put the broad in broadcasting. We love watching them and we love when they guide us through the top news and hot issues of the day. Join our mission – start your own fan sites devoted to the girls of Fox News.

Normally this story would only be of major interest to my circle…media writers who like knowing about little details like this. The passing public and the media in general normally wouldn’t spend time on it.

But these are not normal times. With all the sexual harassment allegations against Roger Ailes combined with what’s been circling around Bill O’Reilly’s head for well over a month now, any story that comes out regarding FNC and the objectification of its female employees is going to get played up. This story qualifies.

It’s a little weird for me because I “grew up” in that world. So did Brian Stelter. Johnny Dollar too. Back before ICN, almost before CableNewser, you would find us hanging out on the fan boards like TVHeads.com (shout out to DT!) Wide World of Women and the MSNBC Yahoo Group. Those places were where we would learn and discuss things about the talent and the networks that employed them. There was no place else.

And then there’s this…

As Salon began reporting this story by interviewing Snyder and others familiar with the NMS and FNC relationship, the owner of girlsoffoxnews.com appears to have devised a method to remove the blog from the Wayback Machine. This required the use of a file called “robots.txt” which can be configured to block archiving software like that used by the Internet Archive. Salon did not tell Snyder about the Dhue and Chetry websites and as of this writing they remain publicly accessible. As might be expected, the operator of the domain did not respond to a request for comment.

Shortly after the Girls of Fox News site was removed from the Wayback Machine, this reporter was contacted by Stephanie Cutter, the former deputy campaign manager of Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. Cutter’s connection to Snyder and NMS is unclear. In an email correspondence, she said she was acting on Snyder’s behalf only as “a long time friend.” She repeatedly asked this reporter to make clear that NMS had not engaged in online trolling operations on behalf of Fox News.

The former Obama staffer also suggested that Fox News itself might well be the current owner of the girlsoffoxnews.com domain. “If NMS registered the URL for aggregation purposes, at most they would have registered it for a year before turning it over to Fox,” Cutter wrote in an email.

A representative for Fox News denied that the network was the current operator or owner of the Chetry, Dhue, or Girls of Fox News blogs.

The one point I would argue over is this non-sequitur…

Fox News staffers also tried other methods to mold the opinions of bloggers and commentators who were popular within the media industry. According to a knowledgeable source, the network’s publicity staff regularly provided proprietary ratings data to Brian Stelter, now a host for CNN, when he was operating an anonymous, independent blog called Cable Newser in the early 2000s. (Stelter did not respond to a request for comment.)

This sounds way more ominous than it really was and I have to defend Brian here. While there is no doubt in my mind that FNC did try to spin Stelter and me at various times in those early days…that’s PR’s job. They aren’t doing their job if they aren’t trying to influence you.

And the leaking of ratings data? Ok…maybe from Nielsen’s standpoint that’s technically a no-no but it happened all the time back then and it would happen from all the networks. As far as I know it still does.

Though, as an opinion molder leaking ratings data is damn weak sauce. Sure it helped to create the daily horse race ratings phenomenon but the utility of that is limited as long term trends started manifesting themselves. At that point who really cares if some show had a really great day or a really bad day if they stayed consistent to their long term trendline?

But the Salon article makes the mistake of trying to pad the account. Salon makes a pretty wild claim …that Johnny Dollar’s Place was being subsidized by FNC at one time…

In addition to operating the Cable Game, the Fox News black ops team also began subsidizing the work of a Michigan lawyer-turned-blogger named Mark Koldys, known online as Johnny Dollar, according to a source.

Koldys, who did not respond to an interview request, has defended Fox and attacked its left-leaning critics online for many years. He began in July of 2004 with a blog called “Johnny Dollar’s Place: Cable News Truth,” whose first posts were dedicated to attacking an anti-Fox News documentary called “Outfoxed.” The site was frequently promoted on The Cable Game.

Besides writing for his own site (which still exists but is apparently no longer subsidized by Fox), Koldys also frequently wrote for a now-defunct blog called OlbermannWatch, a site set up in late 2004 to criticize and parody former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. The creator of that site, Robert Cox, told Salon in an interview that Koldys denied being paid by Fox News at the time. Cox further added that he had not been paid by Fox.

First of all OlbermannWatch and Robert Cox were never on the FNC payroll. Cox just disliked Olbermann. So did Dollar. Not everything that existed on the internet back then which could be considered FNC friendly or “in alignment with FNC thinking” was an FNC backed operation.

As to the anonymous and unsupported claim that Dollar’s site was subsidized by FNC…how you answer that question depends on what you mean by “subsidized”? If we’re talking about subsidizing financially…then I don’t believe it. I know Dollar. I’ve talked with him on the phone. Can I prove he never got paid off? Of course not. But there’s nothing about him (and what I know of him goes back at least thirteen years) to suggest he would take money for this.

Plus if you’ve followed Dollar’s site at all for any significant period of time you’d realize his site isn’t one you would pay off because of the poor return on investment you’d get. He rarely blogs on his site (even rarer than me these days)…his daily updates consist primarily of aggregated links. That’s not a site you need to send money to or invest in financially. It wouldn’t make sense.

On the other hand if by “subsidized” this anonymous accuser meant that FNC was providing information to Dollar via back channels in the form of exclusives or little details he’d get before others…I could see that as plausible.

But more than plausible, it was run of the mill back then. That’s the way things were done in those days and still are done today. Exclusives get doled out like candy to friendly or perceived to not be hostile sites. It doesn’t happen to the degree it did 11 years ago but it still happens.

Salon needs to come out and define what it means by subsidized. I’m just not buying that there was some kind of financial thing going on between FNC and Dollar. It doesn’t pass the smell test.

It’s the sockpuppet angle in this story that’s the problem. It existed. I have a nice big 11 year old 35 page PDF I’ve never released publicly that meticulously documented some of that activity. It’s more historical relic than anything else now; a window into a period when cable news media writing was more like the Wild West and the game was played by different rules than exist today.

FNC Fires Comptroller…

The Wrap’s Brian Flood scoops that FNC fired its Comptroller after an internal investigation…

Fox News has fired longtime comptroller Judy Slater after an internal investigation concluded she had engaged in a pattern of racist comments and behavior, TheWrap has learned.

Slater, who is white and has worked at Fox for 19 years, was accused of asking one African-American employee if all three of her children were fathered by the same man, according to an individual familiar with the matter.

Flood goes on to detail more alleged examples. 19 years at FNC and only busted now?

FNC Ices Napolitano…With a “Zakaria Out” Looming On The Horizon.

The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint writes about FNC benching Andrew Napolitano over his as still unsubstantiated claims that the Obama had the British wiretap Donald Trump…

Fox News is temporarily benching its legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court Judge, over his unconfirmed report last week that British intelligence had wiretapped Trump Tower for President Barack Obama, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Usually a frequent contributor, Mr. Napolitano hasn’t appeared on Fox News since Thursday, when he made the comments.

The commentary was cited by the White House as it continues to make the case that President Obama was trying to sabotage the Trump campaign. The British intelligence agency GCHQ, which rarely makes public statements, said last week the assertion by Mr. Napolitano was “utterly ridiculous.”

Fox News also attempted to distance itself from Mr. Napolitano’s remarks with anchor Shepard Smith saying on-air Friday that the channel could not confirm the commentary and “knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-president of the United States was surveilled at any time, in any way, full stop.”

FNC had little choice in the matter and in benching Napolitano the network probably did enough given the state of cable news where Fareed Zakaria can still have a job at CNN. So I’m not too interested in any choruses of “FNC should fire Napolitano”.

Of course I think FNC should fire him. He brought FNC’s journalism wing into the crosshairs with his sketchy antics by invoking Fox News by name in his reports when he was the one who sourced it. The correct course of action is to cut him loose. But why should FNC do the right thing and invite further scrutiny and another round of headlines when it can just ice Napolitano for a few days and then bring him back and call the matter “closed” ala CNN and Zakaria?

CNN established the standard here for journalistic transgressions. FNC will now probably follow suit and get away with it because CNN got away with it. I hope I’m wrong here. But I probably won’t be.

Brenda Buttner Passes Away…

FNC’s Brenda Buttner passed away way too early. As one who used to tune in regularly to Bulls and Bears back when Saturday’s Business block actually covered business and stocks and politics was kept on the periphery, Bulls and Bears was a treat to watch. Neil Cavuto paid tribute to Buttner on Your World today…

Big Plans For FNC?

The New York Post’s Steve Cuozzo writes about big goings on in FNC’s future…

Twenty-First Century Fox and News Corp., the separate media giants controlled by Rupert Murdoch, have locked in plans to keep and expand their headquarters on Sixth Avenue’s famed “corporate row.”

(snip)

The deal for Twenty-First Century Fox totals 784,000 square feet. It includes a five-year extension of a lease that was to expire in 2020, plus 128,000 more square feet of expansion space on three high floors. The expansion is expected to take place this year, and will accommodate Fox employees who now work next door at 1185 Sixth Ave.

News Corp., meanwhile, extended its current lease on 440,000 square feet, also from 2020 to 2025.

It was understood that Fox News Channel will now invest considerable capital to create a state-of-the-art newsroom. FNC recently launched a $30 million sidewalk-fronting studio.

NBC’s Megyn Kelly Gambit…

Variety’s Brian Steinberg lists some of the potential pitfalls facing NBC and its soon to be newest employee…

And yet, Kelly’s current halo does not necessarily mean she can also triumph over splintered broadcast-TV audiences and tired formats. Those are hurdles she and NBC will have to leap over in the months to come.

NBC said it intends to place Kelly in a new Monday-through-Friday daytime hour set to launch sometime over the coming year. To accomplish that feat, NBC would have to either take time from the four hours it already devotes to its “Today” morning franchise, which generates hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue; negotiate with affiliates for strong placement of a syndicated hour; or test something in the early evening, where it distributes “Access Hollywood.” Meanwhile, a Sunday newsmagazine would likely run for a limited cycle, as the network already devotes a good portion of its Sunday lineup to “Sunday Night Football,” one of TV’s most-watched programs.

But this is the biggest one in my opinion…

Launching a new, sustainable newsmagazine has also been tricky in recent years, as NBC learned when it debuted “Rock Center” with Brian Williams in 2011. That effort also lasted two seasons before being cancelled due to low ratings. NBC more recently tried “On Assignment,” an effort produced by its “Dateline” staff that relies more heavily on stories of adventure and innovation that on the murder tales viewers have come to expect from the parent show.

“In recent years”?!?

NBC has a long and distinguished history of failed attempts at news magazine shows. Even Dateline originally debuted in a vastly different form than it has today.

Left untouched in this article are two very interesting subjects…

1. Why was MSNBC conspicuously absent from any mention? I can think of two reasons and their initials are BW and RM. Say what you will about the decision but MSNBC has deliberately positioned the network as the home of Brian Williams and Rachel Maddow. Bringing in Megyn Kelly, even if she had the bandwidth to take on the assignment (something I seriously doubt given the daytime show), would totally upset that apple cart.

2. The pecking order on Nightly News – This is not an issue in the near to mid-term. Lester Holt isn’t going anywhere for at least five years provided ratings hold. But his successor is now going to be a little more of an open question than it was yesterday. The conventional wisdom was Savannah Guthrie would succeed Holt, provided NBC was comfortable with losing her on the from more financially lucrative Today Show in a post Matt Lauer era. But add in Kelly to the mix and the equation could potentially change…provided NBC’s gambit on Kelly pays off…and that is anything but guaranteed.

I always thought that of the three broadcast networks CBS was the best choice for Kelly, followed by NBC. ABC seems pretty set for the next decade and beyond with David Muir.

Megyn Kelly’s Conundrum…

This Erik Wemple interview with Megyn Kelly in the Washington Post is long but there is one area that needs highlighting now because of its potential impact on her future…anywhere.

KELLY: Oh, my next deal is all about greater balance. I mean, that’s — I had professional success, right? Thankfully. And I feel like I’m at a level in my business where I’ve established myself as a professional. And the one thing I haven’t managed to do is find a way to achieve a better balance. You know, it started off fine, this particular job and my family situation because my three little ones were very small when I started “The Kelly File.” They were 3, 2 and newborn. So, you know, I don’t know if you have kids, but you spend the day at home with them.

EWB: I have a 10 and I have a 13.

KELLY: Yeah, so you know how that goes. You can see them all day. But then they start school and now two out of my three and soon three out of my three are going to be in school from 8 a.m. in the morning till 3:30 p.m. So that’s not good enough, that’s when I leave for Fox. And I need to do better.

EWB: You write in the book that you get to go to daytime school events. It seems as though, you know, you left the legal profession, you became famous, you make a lot of money and you get to go to your kids’ daytime school events: How is that not a win-win-win and what more would you be seeking on the balance front?

KELLY: Yeah, well it is a win but it isn’t good enough. I want to see my kids for dinner, I want to put them down at night, I want to see their soccer games after school. I want to get to know the parents who take their kids to some of these events, and not all the time. We all feel that to some extent, but my problem in my current role is I see them in the morning and . . . I take them to school but unless there’s a school event that I can attend, I might not see them at all for the rest of the day until they’re sleeping in their beds at night.

EWB: Do they call you at work while you’re trying to get ready for “The Kelly File”?

KELLY: Yeah, we talk on the phone, so listen: It’s not that I don’t understand working parents make sacrifices; they all do, whether they’re TV anchors or not. It’s just a question of what works for any given individual and all I’m saying and I’ve said it publicly is that this particular balance that I’ve struck right now is not good enough for me. I will tell you that Fox has always been good about working things like that out. And I don’t have any doubt that they’d be good to me on that front here too, so that’s one of the things we’ll figure out before I have to make up my mind.

Here’s the Megyn Kelly conundrum: What she wants is incompatible with her current career trajectory…at least at FNC.

FNC needs her to hold down 9pm, particularly after building her career up over the past decade as “the next big thing”. “The next big thing” doesn’t deserve “next big thing” status if it’s moved out of primetime to dayside or early evening. And it certainly doesn’t deserve anything near O’Reilly money. Historically, nobody pulls down those 9pm numbers during the day. Nobody.

So FNC is really wanting Kelly to be their next face of prime time. To put her back out of prime undermines everything the network has striven for and it also lowers her profile. And you don’t want to overpay for lower returns.

But 9pm is no good for Kelly if The Kelly File is airing live because she wants to be with her children at that hour and 9pm is particularly no good for FNC if it’s taped because it would mean 2/3 of FNC’s prime time programming would be taped and would require pre-emption if some live event transpired; a pre-emption not featuring the star talent that’s supposed to occupy that time.

Can you imagine the hay MSNBC and CNN would make with FNC if 2/3 of its primetime lineup isn’t live? Or, worse, play up that the network’s sole live prime time anchor is Sean Hannity? This stuff just writes itself sometimes.

If you had asked me a week ago where I thought Kelly would wind up I would have told you to bet the bank on FNC. I cannot make the same proclamation today based on this revelation.

FNC is probably still the favorite but this new (to the public anyways) wrinkle about Kelly wanting to re-balance her life throws a big monkey wrench into the works. Now, that rumored CNN offer with wide cross-Turner distribution…but for far less money than FNC would pay…looks more appealing than it did if it gets her life re-balanced. Now, a broadcast network offer doesn’t seem quite as far fetched as before since she wouldn’t have to worry about being live on primetime most nights of the year.

Or, she could stay at FNC in some yet to be determined non-live at primetime role. Or she could swallow hard and stay live in primetime at FNC. Whatever happens, money isn’t necessarily the biggest consideration we might have thought it was. Family may be.

Yawn…

Er…for reasons unknown Greg Gutfeld decided to revive my 5+ year old post press release commentary regarding the announcement of The Five as a replacement for the timeslot previously occupied by Glenn Beck. I was made aware of this by a shit disturbing Johnny Dollar tweet:

.@greggutfeld recalls the @InsideCableNews review of @TheFive: “I give it six weeks.” Greg sez: “What happened to that guy? He’s homeless!”

Um. Yeah. Ok.

Gutfeld has brought up this subject before. He did it three years ago on The Five’s second anniversary. And I responded to that. Short version: No excuses. I got it wrong.

Why Gutfeld brought it up again today, I have no idea. It’s not another anniversary for the show. And it’s not like I’ve been throwing darts at the show the past few years. I don’t get it. There’s no reason to rehash it other than he’s bored I guess. I already fell on my sword once so I’m not going to do it again now.

But I do have one thing to say to Gutfeld. If you’re going to come after me, come after me with the truth. That tweet saying I said, “I give it six weeks.” left me scratching my head. That didn’t sound like me. That’s not how I talk about shows. I don’t give closed ended timelines. But just to be sure I checked the original post and sure enough the only thing I said was I didn’t expect the show to last. Obviously wrong but then so is Gutfeld for saying that I said, “I give it six weeks.”

But then this shouldn’t be surprising. The first time he came after me he played fast and loose with the truth as well and took me out of context on several points which I rebutted point by point.

Greg, you don’t need to embellish. You had me dead to rights on the show not lasting and I owned up to it. To slant it with embellishments just makes you look bad when you didn’t need to go there in the first place. The truth cuts deeper than a lie every time.

Megyn Kelly to CNN Would Be A Risk For Both

This post comes a little late but my mom is in the hospital with a coronary condition so I have not had the time to write. 

A couple of days ago Drudge posted a story that Jeff Zucker was going all out to poach Megyn Kelly from FNC. The motivation behind the leaking of this to Drudge would be juicy indeed. Which camp did the deed and why?

But I am instead going to write about why this would probably be a bad deal for both, but for vastly different reasons.

For CNN the risks and unknowns are greater than they are for Kelly. In order…

• According to Drudge, Zucker can’t afford to outbid Fox so instead he is trying to entice Kelly by offering a very wide greater than CNN networks platform and a huge promotion campaign. CNN has a decidedly mixed record on this score. The network threw oodles of money behind a campaign to promote Anderson Cooper; a campaign which failed to deliver the ratings the network hoped for and drew much ridicule for the alleged cost.
• Zucker is taking a bigger risk than necessary if he does things this way. Despite all the glamour shots, all the glowing articles, all the off network promotional appearances, all the hype (Some of it deserved. Some not)…the fact is it is a huge unknown whether Megyn Kelly’s FNC star power transfers off that network. Given the lackluster ratings her Fox broadcast prime time special turned in, this is also a question Fox may be asking itself. The stigma of partisan cable news is very powerful and makes it tough to broaden one’s profile to other less ideological platforms (see: Maddow, Rachel).
• But even if it did transfer, the chances CNN could come anywhere close to getting the ratings FNC gets with Kelly are almost nil. CNN will almost certainly be overpaying for Kelly and not getting the payoff FNC gets.
• Zucker’s  instincts regarding talent is checkered at best. For every winning move he has made, there have been two or three which have detonated spectacularly in his face. Alexis Glick being forced down the Today Show’s throat. Going all in on Kate Bolduan and Chris Cuomo because of their on air chemistry only to quietly sever that tie when it was obvious he was very very wrong.
• Some could see this as a move to weaken FNC. It is true that Kelly is the prime time heir apparent to O’Reilly who has maybe a couple of TV years left in him so losing both could cause trouble. But this is predicated on the notion that FNC can’t adjust. As we have seen with Tucker Carlson positively flourishing in Greta Van Susteren’s  old timeslot, an apparent loss is not necessarily a loss.
• If CNN comes within a half of FNC’s offer, that will put more than a few CNN telents’ noses out of joint.With justification.

For Kelly the risks are potentially just as high as CNN but for vastly different reasons.

• She will not make as much money as she could at FNC. Exposure is nice but salary is the biggest barometer of stature in this industry.
• No matter how much cross platform exposure Zucker throws Kelly’s way, the unavoidable fact is Zucker has made the network one where there is no leader. No star. No anchor. Instead it is a team of rotating cogs that can be swiped in and out as needed. There is no true pecking order among the top talent. Anyone can dominate at any time given the situation. It isn’t Anderson Cooper’s network. Nor is it Wolf Blitzer’s, Don Lemon’s, Jake Tapper’s, or anyone else’s. That especially includes Megyn Kelly who as the new kid on the block would have to prove herself all over again to justify the prominence Zucker would force down the viewer’s throat. At FNC she could become the face of the  network once O’Reilly is gone. At CNN she will always be one of a crowd.

Kelly would be better off at a broadcast network than she would at CNN, though not do as well as she would staying at FNC. CNN will likely never get the intended payoff it hopes for by luring her over. This is not a great deal for either.

Tucker Carlson Tonight Premieres…

I’m back. I’ve been back for almost a week but I came back with a mild cold that exploded into a nasty sumbitch of a cold that laid me out until last night. Normally getting a cold on a dive trip means no more diving the rest of the trip but it hit me after I completed my dives. I was lucky. Spudette? Not so lucky.

Anyway, I was pretty unplugged for most of the trip once I got to Raja Ampat. The satellite internet was spotty at best. Consequently, I had no idea that FNC had announced Tucker Carlson had gotten the timeslot vacated by Greta Van Susteren. And my cold had kept me off the internet once home so I didn’t know it debuted tonight until I saw the last five minutes of it.

What do you think of the show? I’m not sure I like the graphics package.

The Best Shepard Smith Interview/Profile You’ll Ever Read…

Yes, I am late to this. I have been distracted (for reasons which will become all too obvious in a few days).

But I felt it paramount that I note Michael Calderone’s Huffington Post interview with Shepard Smith. Quite simply it is the best Shep interview and profile I have ever read. Period. So, naturally it is a must read…

Everyone is going to zero in on Smith coming out publicly for the first time. But I am more interested in this part of the same passage…

He said that reports that Ailes had prevented him from coming out publicly several years ago were false. “That’s not true. He was as nice as he could be to me. I loved him like a father,” he said. “I trusted him with my career and with ― I trusted him and trusts were betrayed. People outside this company can’t know [how painful that betrayal was]. This place has its enemies, but inside, it was very personal, and very scarring and horrifying.”

Shep said he advocated strongly for leading the coverage of the crisis rather than shying away from it, and he was one of the few, if not the only, Fox anchors to report on it.

“It’s not over,” he added. “This was a real shock to the system, and it upended a lot of things that we thought we knew. We were wounded and horrified and very emotional, and we realize that as leaders we need to come in and face up to what we’ve learned … We have to make sure there aren’t young victims wandering around here who need us. We have to get appropriate counselors in here. We have to make sure legally everybody’s protected and have to make a commitment to be the most transparent, open and welcoming organization of our kind in the world, and I’m determined to be a part of the team that makes it happen.”

And then there’s this…

“There’s something else happening here, there’s an entire right-conservative electorate that feels like it’s been betrayed over time, that its candidates would say they’re going to do something and then wouldn’t do it,” he said. “But all the while, we were reporting that they knew better. Obamacare, they were gonna block it, they voted 55 times to stop it, and every time, we reported this is not going to happen. But they felt betrayed.”

And this…

In a more grounded Fox, Shep would take on a much greater role. In his most recent meeting with Rupert Murdoch, he asked where Murdoch felt the center of gravity was going to move post-Ailes, whether toward news or toward the opinion side. “He said, ‘I’m a newsman. I want to be the best news organization in America,’” Shep recalled.

Murdoch, he said, has big plans. “He wants to hire a lot more journalists, he wants to build us a massive new newsroom, he wants to make more commitments to places like this [studio], to hire reporters to work on beats, just enlarge our news-gathering,” Shep said. “When the biggest boss, who controls everything, comes and says ‘That’s what I want to do,’ that’s the greatest news I’ve heard in years. And he didn’t mention one thing about our opinion side.”