The Friday news update, courtesy of Fox News Channel.

Friday’s news update, courtesy of Fox News Channel.

FOX News Channel’s Megyn Kelly will begin solo anchoring a new two-hour Dayside program from 1-3PM ET on Monday February 1st which will replace The Live Desk for the powerhouse news network, according to Kelly’s exclusive for The Examiner’s Jim Kouri.

Since coming to FNC, Kelly brings her legal training and experience as an attorney to the top-rated FNC lineup. Kelly’s new show — America Live with Megyn Kelly — will move popular afternoon host Martha MacCallum  to the 9-11AM ET time slot, where she will join anchor Bill Hemmer.

Among her achievements in law and journalism is Kelly’s reporting on the rape charges against the Duke University lacrosse players. She broke new details in the case that ultimately helped exonerate the defendants.

In making the programing switch, Clemente said, “We’ve been incredibly fortunate to develop two valuable assets in Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly — dividing their journalistic expertise across our daytime lineup will only serve to broaden our strength as a network.”

Kelly’s new afternoon program will focus on the top stories of the day, covering breaking news as well as showcasing interviews with key newsmakers and experts offering analysis on the day’s events. Additionally, the two-hour block will include her signature legal segment, “Kelly’s Court,” which will showcase Kelly’s skills from her previous career as a trial lawyer.

Aside from anchoring a new two-hour program, she will continue to appear as a regular guest on The O’Reilly Factor every Thursday evening during her branded legal segment, “The Kelly File.”

In an exclusive with The Examiner’s Jim Kouri, Kelly said, “Although I will miss starting my mornings with Bill, I’m thrilled to embark on this new opportunity and look forward to delivering the news during what is shaping up to be one of the most historic news periods of our time.”

Hemmer added, “I couldn’t have asked for a better co-anchor in Megyn, but I’m excited to lead America’s Newsroom in 2010 and continue to kick off our daytime news line-up every morning.” 

I realize that I am being repetitive here, as I have talked about this subject before, but it bears repeating as it tests the pulse of the television-watching public: the fact that Fox News Channel is #1 throughout any given week, according to polls.

So to hammer home the point, a Public Policy Polling nationwide survey of 1,151 registered voters on January 18-19 discovered that 49 percent of Americans trusted FNC, which is 10 percentage points higher than its leading competitor.

37% said that they didn’t trust Fox, which is not surprisingly, the lowest level of distrust of any of the networks.

In reference to partisanship, there was a split among those who trusted FNC: 74% of Republicans trust Fox while only 30% of Demcrats stated they trusted the network.

Meanwhile, CNN was the second-most-trusted network, garnering the trust of 39% of those polled while 41% said they didn’t trust CNN. All three of the major networks were trusted by les sthna 40 percent of those polled, with NBC ranking the highest at 35%; 44 percent said they didn’t trust NBC, which was combined with its sister network BSNBC MSNBC.

Additionally, 32 percent said that they trusted CBS while 31 percent said they trusted ABC; both CBS and ABC were mistrusted by 46% of those polled. According to PPP President Dean Debnam:

“A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most neutral and unbiased conveyors of news.

“But the media landscape has really changed, and now they’re turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.”

So there you have it, folks. The numbers do not lie. The poll illustrates what is probably old news: the American viewing public is not as stupid as the progressives (liberals) make them out to be. Not to mention that despite what the Democrats claim, this country is by and large center to just right-of-center in their thinking.

And that will be validated when the mid-term elections take place in November of this year.

The Saturday news update, courtesy of Fox News Channel.

No big surprise when I say that Fox News Channel, as is their tendency, beat out the mainstream media channels. And probably not as surprising, the network was king of election coverage this past Tuesday. Here’s the numbers:

FOXNEWS HANNITY 6,809,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 6,399,000
FOXNEWS O’REILLY 5,228,000
FOXNEWS BECK 3,446,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 3,338,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 3,241,000
CNN KING 1,681,000
CNN COOPER 1,508,000
CNN BROWN 1,308,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,274,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,236,000
CNN BLITZER 1,135,000
CNNHN BEHAR 845,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 798,000

Source: Drudge Report

As if Fox News Channel couldn’t do any better in the ratings, they just committed the media equivalent of grand larceny as the network signed former Alaska governor Sarah Palin to a multi-year deal.

And to be certain, you’ll see plenty of Palin as part of the deal.

While at FNC, she will offer political commentary and analysis on the cable channel along with various duties at the channel’s website, radio network and Fox Business Channel. She will occasionally host FNC’s “Real American Stories” , a series debuting this year that will feature true inspirational stories of Americans who have overcome adversity.

The broadcasting angle isn’t exactly foreign to Palin as she started out as a part-time sports broadcaster for KTUU in Anchorage, AK back in the 1980’s.

This was obviously a coup for Fox News and what are already bgi ratings will go only higher. And you can expect the leftw-ing media to pounce all over this development. There really isn’t much to say here about this but: “Welcome Home, Sarah!!”