Where are you going after being at the top and falling into the depths?

Megyn Kelly, I just got fired from NBC's "Today" show, probably asking this question now – and discovering that his options are limited, despite the explosive expansion of the media world that she lives in. .

"She's a presenter without a portfolio and no home – she's stateless now," says Mark Feldstein, a professor of audiovisual journalism at the University of Maryland, who has devoted two decades to ABC's, CNN's and TV newscasts. Local information.

"She may have a good financial fortune with all the money that she has saved, but there are not many options for her, and I'm sure these are very unattractive options for someone who has the money and the visibility that she usually has. "

No other consumer information network is likely to take him, and his former home at Fox News is not interested. It could switch to Fox Nation, the network's new streaming service launched on November 27, or Sinclair Broadcast Group, the emerging conservative network of local TV channels. She could host a new syndicated program tailored to her personality or follow the example of her former colleague from Fox, Bill O'Reilly, and jump directly to the Internet with an online broadcast.

She could even become a lawyer again. Or she could go home with millions of people and write another memoir about how she found herself in this difficult situation. In any case, these options would probably be considered as great breakthroughs for her.

Still, it's hard to imagine that Kelly is simply fading, not after her years have plunged into the dazzling glow of the media.

Kelly on her show "Megyn Kelly Today" on October 22, 2018, the day before controversial remarks that had led to the cancellation of the show and the negotiation of her departure from NBC News. (Photo: Nathan Congleton / NBC via AP)

"Once they (the media stars) have a taste of television, they will be like vampires, they will not be able to go back to anonymity, their psyche will not allow it," says Feldstein.

Judy Muller, former ABC channel correspondent and currently professor of journalism emeritus at the University of Southern California, said that for television, the ego and professional prestige often outweighed it. # 39; money.

"But going home and retiring? It's not planned," Muller predicts Kelly. "The good news for (her), is that there are so many more (new) opportunities than ever before.That will become humiliating, no matter what she does." "

Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University and former tracker of pop culture, recognizes the new media universe but remains convinced that Kelly's options are "really, really, very limited ", as his previously ascending career path is likely. to be perceived as stopped if not reversed.

"The question is this: where are you going that is not considered a hard time from where you were heading," Thompson said. "I think Megyn Kelly needs to contextualize this: I'm fine with what will be perceived as being backward and downward, and I'm also aware that there are not so many upward and advanced pathways."

Feldstein said: Kelly, who was once a megastar, is now a damaged property less than two years after leaving Fox News with emotion and being directed to NBC News with ambitions for a career and a brand change at the Oprah Winfrey.

She took over the nine-hour "Today's" slot with her own talk show and a multi-million dollar salary, but she was unable to find a NBC staff member who he was suspicious of his frozen conservatism, which had been so successful at Fox. After criticizing the NBC channel's leaders for managing the debacle of sexual misconduct brought on by Matt Lauer, after clashing with distinguished guests and after his ratings began to drop, it all melted away. tears last week.

Kelly suggested (to a group of all white guests) that being offended by a blackface in Halloween costume was purely and simply politically correct. This seemed particularly egregious, given her history of questionable comments (such as her insistence that Santa Claus and Jesus were white) when she was at Fox.

Megyn Kelly with Melissa Rivers, Jacob Soboroff and Jenna Bush Hager at a Halloween segment titled "Megyn Kelly Today" on October 23, 2018, when Kelly defended the use of blackface in costumes d & # 39; Halloween. (Photo: Nathan Congleton / NBC / via AP)

At once, Twitterverse – and NBC – told him that she was wrong. At the very least, it was a remark that revealed ignorance, says Muller. "You can not be a serial chef like that for that money and be stupid. (NBC) did not buy stupid." As soon as she said that, they did not have the choice."

The next day, Kelly admitted that she was mistaken in apologizing for crying, followed by a multiracial group discussion during which she learned why she was mistaken.

"Maybe she lives in such a bubble that she does not understand how her remarks would be radioactive," says Feldstein. "All these years of red meat at Fox have made him think that smaller portions would be acceptable at NBC, and that's not the case."

Already worried about Kelly's ratings and their fallout, the NBC bosses canceled her show. She and her lawyer, Bryan Freedman, then began to negotiate the terms of his slow motion. Would she have the remaining $ 100 million of her announced $ 69 million contract? Should she agree not to talk about the bad side of NBC in the future? Will there be a non-competition clause? Everything is still in abeyance, but Freedman and NBC are shooting themselves publicly, and the leaks continue.

Meanwhile, Kelly herself prays for the protection of her privacy, describing on Twitter how paparazzi settle at her home. She accused the British tabloid "The Daily Mail" of having crossed a line by photographing her husband inside their home and registering his 7-year-old daughter at his school. "THIS IS NOT RIGHT," she tweeted on Wednesday.

More: Megyn Kelly asks for the protection of her private life after the Blackface scandal: "This is not correct"

More: & # 39; Today & # 39; hui & # 39; passes without Megyn Kelly, while the children of her alma mater say that blackface was never acceptable

More: Megyn Kelly will not return to the show "Today". from NBC

Good news for Kelly: A survey released by the Hollywood Reporter / Morning Consult released Tuesday revealed that nearly half of the 2,201 adults surveyed thought that NBC's decision to cancel "Megyn Kelly Today" was "too much" severe. "

But it is done, and now what? The obvious option: Return to Fox News, where his personality, style and views were once very popular on the main cable news network. But Fox canceled that option.

On Thursday, Fox co-president Lachlan Murdoch made an official statement at the annual New York Times DealBook conference. "Listen, I'm a big fan of Megyn, I like her a lot – we did not want her to leave Fox when she did," he says. "That said, I'm very happy with our current Fox lineup, and we will not make any changes there."

The fact that Kelly left Fox after boring his base by challenging President Donald Trump's attitudes towards women and after accusing Fox honchos of sexual harassment in a revealing memoir probably did not help.

"She has only very few options because she built her bridges at Fox and the related segment of the right media, as well as in NBC and all the mainstream media," Feldstein said.

She should fix the obstacles with Fox if she wants to go back or to the Fox Nation. Margaret Sullivan, a media columnist for the Washington Post, told Brian Stelter of CNN about "Reliable Sources" that Kelly may have to get back to normal.

"What's her next chapter? I do not think she's finished, but it's hard to see how she will resuscitate at this point," Sullivan said. "She may have to turn around just before she can get back on the air significantly."

"Maybe Fox will not take it now because the people there felt personally betrayed by his defection," says Feldstein. She may have chosen a small temporary job somewhere else long enough for Fox to kiss her later, he adds.

But no other traditional network or media (eg Netflix) will want to take the risk of seeing it if it will be perceived as tolerating the kind of remarks that sent it back from NBC, says Thompson. "None of them will want to send a message that" our standards are less stringent, "he said.

An outsourcing issue might work well, with Oprah's ambitions, but building a network of affiliates is easier said than done, explains Thompson: "Many are called to be Oprah, few are chosen. "

And that would always be considered a step back for her – unless it's spectacular, for example Jerry Springer was successful.

"Something designed for her would be what she was doing at Fox, so she might be able to use what she learned from NBC's experience to try to adjust it and to create a "new" Megyn Kelly series that looks more like Megyn Kelly, "Thompson says.

"This could be the next path to Oprah-dom … But given the difficulties with which she struggled at the NBC channel, what does it suggest that someone is not?" Would it oppose more?

Another consideration for Kelly's potential employers is that, aside from her black-faced remarks, "Megyn Kelly Today" just did not have the same success as the morning show, as evidenced by the ratings of # 39; listening.

The most successful guests of the morning are warm and confused; Kelly is cool and strong. If she thought she could change her name, she was wrong – and Andrew Lack, president of NBC News, who had hired her. This is a lesson for her and for other potential employers.

"You can not pick someone who's attractive and who's followed Fox and drop it into something that does not suit him," says Muller. "And if she makes a stupid mistake, they all wonder what's wrong?"

The reason for the fall of Kelly's ratings was obvious. Thompson said, "This show was sometimes painful to watch," he says. "She wanted to do an Oprah style show and she did it really badly.

"Even if she was good at the format (prime time) that she had at Fox, if I was a NBC channel executive, I would put a lot of the (calculating to fire her), the Ratings are not good and the series is not good. "

Read or share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/11/05/whats-next-megyn-kelly-she-might-have-limited-options/1831838002/