GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s interview with Megyn Kelly yesterday ended abruptly, as there was a “hard break.” Kelly had to cut off Romney to ensure that the network made the break:
The way the interview ended started a mini-scandal, with MSNBC’s Mika Brzensinski calling Kelly “rude” for cutting Romney off.
Today, Romney was interviewed by Bill Hemmer on FNC, and he is scheduled to be on “Hannity” this evening. Politico’s Dylan Byers wrote: “[I]t is widely assumed that today’s appearance was meant as a makeup session between the two parties.”
A Fox News spokesperson tells TVNewser that the interviews with Hemmer and Hannity “were booked well in advance” of Kelly’s interview, and were not any sort of “makeup.” Romney is in New York City for a handful of fundraisers.
As Byers noted in his piece, Kelly offered Romney the chance to stay on for another segment, but he had another appointment and had to move on.
A “hard break,” for those that aren’t familiar, is a commercial break that cannot be skipped, as it begins automatically when the clock hits a certain time. A network can skip a hard break, but they tend to be costly. Typically hard breaks are only skipped when networks go into rolling coverage of serious and unexpected news events.