Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Megyn Kelly made a surprise announcement at the start of her NBC morning show on Thursday when she teased a cooking segment that was coming up later in the program, something she avowed would never happen in an interview with ‘Vogue’ just last month.
The segment did not involve any actual cooking however, with Megyn just walking through the ingredients for a chicken dish with guest Ayesha Curry before ending up at the final product.
Megyn did move two pieces of raw chicken from a plate into a skillet (calling the skin ‘gross’) and ask Curry to identify one of the herbs she was using (thyme) in the one-pot meal.
Earlier in the show she welcomed on trainer Bob Harper, with the svelte and toned host telling her guest at one point she was ‘covered in flab.’
Don’t be chicken: Megyn Kelly hosted a cooking demo on her ‘Today’ show Thursday morning, a month after telling ‘Vogue’ her show would never feature such segments (Megyn above with Ayesha Curry)
Not a fan: The entire food preparation process lasted just two minutes, with Megyn mostly watching guest Ayesha Curry and at one point saying chicken skin is ‘gross’
Megyn’s cooking segment comes as first week numbers for the show put ‘Megyn Kelly Today’ behind its predecessor ‘Today’s Take’ both week-over-week and year-over-year.
The show averaged 2.5 million viewers for the week, down 12 percent overall and 24 percent in the key demo from the same week in 2016 when Al Roker, Tamron Hall and Billy Bush were hosting the program.
‘Megyn Kelly Today’ was up slightly in overall viewers and but down 5 percent in the key demo from the previous week, when Roker, Dylan Dreyer and Sheinelle Jones closed out their short-lived run hosting the third hour.
The show is also already trailing ‘Live With Kelly & Ryan’ in metered marked ratings, though exact audience numbers are not yet available for the syndicated ABC program.
The metered gap is a large one though, with Kelly grabbing a 0.7 in women 25 – 54 versus a 1.0 for ‘Live’ and a 1.9 rating / 7 share to the 2.3 / 8 posted by ‘Live.’
Between Monday and Friday, NBC’s $17 million hire lost 600,000 viewers, though on the positive side did manage to keep her total audience at around 2.3 million for the last three days of the week.
There was also a jump in viewers on Tuesday, with 2.5 million people tuning into watch Megyn after her show was preempted on Monday for continuing coverage of the Las Vegas massacre on Sunday night.
Bad take: Ratings for her first week show she averaged 2.5 million viewers and was down 24 percent in the demo year-over-year and 5 percent week-over-week (previous hosts Sheinelle Jones, Al Roker and Dylan Dreyer)
‘Now it is time for our regular series, try this today. Where we encourage you to do or try something a little out of your comfort zone. This certainly is for me,’ announced Megyn as she introduced the segment.
Curry then talked a bit about her new cookware line before they launched into the ‘cooking’ segment.
Megyn kept her cue cards in her hands the entire time so was limited in what she could do, and beyond asking Curry to identify an unknown herb and calling the raw chicken ‘gross’ before getting rid of the skin on it did not play much of a role.
In the end, just two minutes was devoted to showing how to prepare the dish.
It is not clear whether more cooking segments will follow, but there will certainly not be one on Friday, when Megyn will be joined by Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman and ‘Fight Song’ singer Rachel Platten.