Megyn Kelly Skips ‘Today’ as Questions Mount Over Her Future at NBC

Within a month, Ms. Kelly’s Sunday magazine show debuted to middling ratings. And before long Ms. Kelly became the scourge of parents of the Sandy Hook shootings when she interviewed the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and posted a photograph of the two smiling together.

NBC quietly announced earlier this year that her Sunday show would return “periodically.”

The morning show, which started in September 2017, would be the source of more headaches. Throughout its run, “Megyn Kelly Today” has trailed the rival program “Live with Kelly and Ryan” by a significant margin.

Ms. Kelly’s show even attracted a smaller audience than the cheaper hour of “Today” that preceded her arrival. The previous version, a genial, low-key affair hosted by Al Roker, Dylan Dreyer and Sheinelle Jones, did not depend on the magnetism of a star performer.

In the early episodes of her morning show, Ms. Kelly offended several celebrity guests, including Debra Messing, a star of NBC’s “Will & Grace,” who said after an appearance that she would never return to the show. Ms. Kelly later got into a dustup with Jane Fonda — by asking her pointedly about her plastic surgery — in what would eventually develop into a monthslong feud.

In an effort to convey a sunnier persona, Ms. Kelly danced awkwardly on the air with a “Today” show colleague, Hoda Kotb, to a Pitbull song. The clip of that moment was shared widely on social media (not in a good way).

In October 2017, after the Harvey Weinstein badual harbadment stories broke, Ms Kelly’s show became the site of discussions of badual misconduct in the workplace. The host also did not shy away from reporting aggressively on badual harbadment stories that affected NBC News. Her close examination of Matt Lauer, whom the network ousted last November following badual misconduct allegations, ruffled feathers within the network.

Early in 2018, there were signs that Ms. Kelly and NBC were not on the same page. The network did not badign her as part of the team to cover the Olympics coverage in February, saying it did not want to disrupt her momentum.

After an extended period of pedestrian ratings, Ms. Kelly and Mr. Lack had a discussion earlier this month — well before the “blackface” remarks — on the possible winding-down of her portion of the “Today” show by the end of the year, according to two people briefed on the conversation. And Ms. Kelly has openly told friends in recent weeks about her unhappiness with top executives at NBC News.