Megyn Kelly recently joined The Shawn Ryan Show to look back at the height of her cable news career, contrasting her current independent setup with the massive corporate backing she once enjoyed during her primetime run.
Speaking with host Shawn Ryan, Kelly pointed to the caliber of advertisers her former show, The Kelly File, used to attract. "And when I was on Fox News in the prime time, which was, you know, whatever, 2016 or so... we were-- you looked at the advertising on The Kelly File. It was, like, American Express, BMW, you know, like, all the blue-chip brands," she recalled.
While the independent podcast space offers Kelly unprecedented creative freedom, her recollection highlights the stark commercial divide between legacy television and the modern creator economy. Today's top-tier podcasters command massive, highly engaged audiences, but they rarely secure the institutional, blue-chip buy-in that legacy networks handed out as a matter of course.
As independent media continues to mature, the next battleground won't just be about audience size, but whether these new platforms can finally lure the conservative corporate dollars that once defined primetime television.