Megyn Kelly may just be the perfect poster child for why deplatforming doesn’t work in the digital age.
Kelly, formerly of Fox News and NBC, was thought to be finished when the peacock network took her off the air in 2018. The supposed inciting incident was a blackface controversy so minor as to scarcely bear mentioning now, but it was clear that the politically conservative Kelly didn’t fit in at a news division which employed, in other capacities, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell.
Even though Kelly walked away with $30 million in a settlement with the network when the split was made official in 2019, according to The Hill, the implication was that she better be able to make it last — because, at least when it came to the dominant broadcast and cable networks, she was finished.
The problem was that the dominant broadcast and cable networks suddenly became, well, much less dominant. It wasn’t just that social media and other distribution channels were proliferating, it was also that Americans and others were rapidly losing trust in mainstream media, and were turning to voices they wouldn’t normally hear on NBC or CNN.
That’s why, as online outlet Semafor noted in a Monday piece, Kelly is arguably more visible than ever on YouTube and SiriusXM satellite radio.
“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,” the outlet noted.
Kelly said that she turned to podcasting after meeting with the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro following her ouster from NBC News. Even though she was apprehensive about finding an audience in the digital space, she took his advice.
It’s paid off.
“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,” Semafor noted.
Are you a fan of Megyn Kelly?
“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 regarding her YouTube presence.
She humorously added: “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.”
Kelly joins figures from both the right and the left who have found a second life in new media — most notably including Tucker Carlson, whom Kelly publicly urged to go digital after his acrimonious split with Fox News last year.
As Fox essentially paid Carlson to do nothing and sit on the couch during election season, Kelly said that “Tucker should breach [the contract]” he had with Fox and start his own show.
“He should come out. He should talk. He should start a rival news network. He should quit. He should forfeit the money,” Kelly said. “He’ll make more money anyway.”
Carlson soon wound up on Twitter/X, and the rest is history.
It’s not just conservatives, either. Controversial former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan has had some initial success with his YouTube venture Zeteo, and even Don Lemon has managed to muddle through on X with an interview-centric program after he got canned from CNN.
Not that Hasan or Lemon are good people — or even tolerable, for that matter — but the point is that, if they aren’t saying truly vile things, they should have the freedom to say them. For decades, establishment media has acted as a gatekeeper, and when that failed, they turned to big tech to turn down the reach of those who weren’t on board.
As Megyn Kelly has amply proved, that strategy won’t work forever — and that revenge is indeed sweet.
