Report: Fox Brass Figuring Out Best Use of Kelly at 10 PM

WNYW New York held a skull session of top Fox O&O brass recently to work on Greg Kelly and the 10 p.m. news, reports FishbowlNY.

Multiple sources close to the situation say three high-ranking Fox executives met [July 17] with WNYW VP/GM Lew Leone for “damage control.”FishbowlNY has learned that Jack Abernathy, Dennis Swanson, and Sharri Berg met with Leone, although news director Dianne Doctor was a no-show.

One source says the trio came to 67th Street to “figure out how to handle Greg in the 10 o’clock news.”

The report says Kelly, who moved from mornings a few weeks back, and replaced Ernie Anastos alongside Dari Alexander in the 10 p.m. program, still has some of his morning news habits, including riffing and playing it loose. Last night, he ad-libbed about Jets coach Rex Ryan’s  drastic weight loss, prompting the producers to return to the same clips of Kelly, before and after the weight loss, as Kelly kept on the topic, seemingly after its allotted time. It didn’t come off as all that slick.

Says Fishbowl:

“They have an internal issue with Greg running the show,” one source [says].

Along with ad libbing too much, “which is sometimes inaccurate,” the source says, Kelly is dropping and adding stories on his own, making producers “go crazy.”