Got fed up. Wrote to NBC's Phil Griffin and Andy Lack about MSNBC grotesqueries

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70. I don't have any inside track on the NBC goings-on anymore. But what I'd read was that

Tamron Hall was sacrificed because NBC acquired Megyn Kelly and wanted to give her an hour of the "Today" show block in the morning. A later hour. I think it was the one leading into Hoda and Kathie Lee. Tamron Hall was was the host of that lead-in hour. Didn't want to trust my memory because this was much earlier this year (February 1), so I looked it up:

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/tamron-hall-nbc-news-1201975592/#article-comments

Tamron Hall, an anchor best known for her time on MSNBC and the 9 a.m. hour of “Today,” will leave NBC News, which recently announced plans to accommodate a new morning program featuring Megyn Kelly.

NBC News said it had been in discussions with Hall, who was nearing the end of her contract. Executives “hopes that she would decide to stay,” the NBCUniversal unit said in a prepared statement issued Wednesday. “We are disappointed that she has chosen to leave, but we wish her all the best.” NBC News said her broadcasts on “Today” and MSNBC yesterday would be her final ones, and that she is expected to leave formally at the end of February.

The current format of NBC’s 9 a.m. hour, currently part of its “Today” morning franchise, is expected to be scrapped in the fall, part of plans recently disclosed by people familiar with the matter to carve out time for Megyn Kelly. The former Fox News Channel anchor, who recently left that network and will join NBC in May, is expected to take the reins of a new morning program that will air at either 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. If 10 a.m. is the chosen slot, then that hour’s current inhabitants, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, would move an hour earlier.

I liked Tamron Hall. Thought she was great on the air, a terrific communicator, with a a very charming personality. Beautiful but also nonthreatening. Intelligent and articulate. While Megyn Kelly reads ice-cold, Tamron Hall always seemed warm, human, and appealing, with a twinkle in her eye and a sense of humor as well as enough gravitas to anchor the news. They shouldn't have played it this way. Obviously they couldn't figure out something else appropriate for (or worthy of) Tamron Hall, otherwise it might have induced her to stay. I'm no fan of Megyn Kelly. She's never impressed me that much, and I frankly don't see what all the fuss is supposedly about. Evidently, neither do NBC viewers, since her Sunday evening hour went from a so-so debut to fail, more fail, and then even more fail in the ratings over the next few weekends.

It will be most intriguing to watch when Kelly takes that 9am "Today" timeslot in September. The prevailing understanding about TV programming has long been: WOMEN watch in the morning in very high numbers. For the most part, at least for the stay-at-homes, they're making breakfast for the family, packing the lunch boxes for school, handling carpool or some such thing, and then after everybody's at school or work, they settle down to enjoy a little more fluff and a little less hard news. That's where they originally put Billy Bush of all people (before the "grab 'em by the pussy" episode). The "Today" format softens up after the prime morning (news) hours. The popular, amiable and highly relatable Al Roker carries over from the "hard news hours" because he's just plain fun and pleasant to watch. He reads FRIEND! The whole thing has a flavor of lighter subject matter, fun, cooking, style, health and wellbeing, and pop culture. Megyn Kelly seems like a bad match and a very poor fit. Plus, I don't think she could be considered fun to watch OR amiable OR relatable in the least. You could easily see yourself meeting up with an Al Roker or a Tamron Hall for coffee. I seriously doubt Megyn Kelly will telegraph that kind of appeal.