The News
When then-host Megyn Kelly was pushed out of NBC News in 2019, many television network insiders thought her broadcast career was likely over. Instead, now Kelly is nearly as popular as ever.
According to audience figures highlighted by Kelly’s team for Semafor, Kelly’s show is now not only one of the most listened-to programs on SiriusXM, but it’s also one of the top ten podcasts in the country and its viewership is eclipsing that of some mainstream news outlets on YouTube.
Kelly boasts that despite the fact that she only has six staffers, she has managed to get numbers that put her in the range of the accounts of legacy media outlets. The Megyn Kelly Show’s YouTube channel, which has 2.3 million subscribers, had 116.8 million views in July — more views than the official channels for NBC News (78 million) CBS News (83 million), Sky News (87 million), the BBC News (72 million) and CNBC (17 million).
“On-camera is how people are used to getting their news from me, so it likely feels familiar,” Kelly said of her growth on YouTube. “I am also half Italian, half Irish, so if you choose to watch the show, you will definitely glean something from the hand gestures and facial expressions that you might not always pick up on from listening alone. With the news what it is these days, sometimes an eye-roll, forehead slap, or pen-throw is absolutely required.”
In an interview with Semafor last year, Kelly said that after she was forced out of NBC News, she met with the conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, who suggested she turn to podcasting. But she was scared that she wouldn’t be able to find an audience in digital media.
The post-cable independent route has given a second life to some other former personalities who’ve found themselves without a home on linear television. Former MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan left the network to start his own publication, Zeteo, which has quickly garnered a strong subscriber base and nearly 370,000 subscribers on YouTube since launching less than six months ago. While his post-CNN tenure has been a bit bumpier, former anchor Don Lemon has proved that he can still attract big-name guests and audience attention with his interview-focused YouTube show.
Update: A source notes that the the social media tracking firm ListenFirst puts Kelly at 105 million views to NBC News’s 180 million.