NBC head says the wrong timeslot — not defending blackface — led to Megyn Kelly's failure at 'Today'

Suzy Byrne
·Editor, Yahoo Entertainment

Now that Megyn Kelly‘s settlement with NBC is complete, all parties are ready to move on. Kelly — who will receive the remaining $30 million of her $69 million, three-year contract — said she’s planning to return to TV this year, and NBC is trying to regain control of the narrative.

NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke talks about what went wrong with Megyn Kelly. (Photo: Getty Images)
NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke talks about what went wrong with Megyn Kelly. (Photo: Getty Images)

NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke did an interview with Variety in which he said he was “100% behind Andy” Lack, the NBC News chief who brought in — and then ushered out — Kelly. He also shouldered some of the blame for the Kelly debacle, saying, “I went over and told [Kelly] she should come here” from Fox News.

And while Burke went on to call Kelly a “huge talent,” he said that giving her the third hour of the Today show was a mistake. “She was at the wrong time of day,” he said. “In hindsight, we shouldn’t have done it.”

What he didn’t mention was that Kelly’s Today show was canceled after she said that there was no reason white people shouldn’t dress up in blackface on Halloween. Or the fact that Kelly did have a primetime news show on NBC — Alex Jones, the controversial conspiracy theorist founder of InfoWars, was an early guest — that was short-lived. But the internet hasn’t forgotten, and those are the comments — among others — all over the internet today following Burke’s interview.

In the interview, Burke also briefly addressed the question of Matt Lauer. While talking about the “drumbeat” building from people who told him “you gotta fire” Andy Lack, Burke said “a lot of that was really unfair. Matt Lauer was a grenade that we didn’t know was a grenade. I was here seven years, and I thought Matt Lauer was the greatest interviewer in news.”

With Kelly’s settlement with NBC resolved, the TV personality is ready to get back to work. Last week, while out with her husband in NYC, she told a TMZ reporter that she will be back on TV later this year.

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