HLN’s 8 PM host Nancy Grace has signed a new, multi-year contract to stay with the network, people familiar with the deal tell TVNewser. Grace and HLN quietly inked the new agreement late last year.
The financial terms of the deal were not immediately available.
Interestingly, the deal with HLN comes after Grace and her agent had “serious” discussions with Fox Business Network about bringing her program there, two people close to the situation say.
Grace has a number of friends at Fox News, and has appeared on the network on a few occasions in recent years to promote her other projects. FBN is also home to another legal show, Andrew Napolitano’s “Freedom Watch.”
Most recently, Grace appeared on some FNC programming in August and September, where she discussed her syndicated show “Swift Justice,” her book Death on the D-List as well as some of the hot-button legal issues of the day. Grace appeared on “Fox & Friends, as well as on the programs hosted by Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly.
One person familiar with the situation likened those appearances to an “audition,” though of course her eponymous HLN show would presumably serve the purpose just as well.
A Fox Business executive tells TVNewser that “After her price and demands continued to escalate, Fox Business decided to walk away.”
Grace has been on something of a roll of late, exclusively covering high profile crime stories that the other cable news channels have missed. This week she has covered the missing 13-year old cheerleader in Texas, and is planning to cover on her program tonight the case of a 30-year old police officer and father who was killed by a repeat offender recently released from prison.
Her syndicated show, “Swift Justice” has also caught on with audiences, and is looking like a success story in the increasingly crowded syndie space.
The past few months have not all been pleasant for Grace however, as the host had a brief cancer scare late last year. In addition, while her program is still the top show on HLN, it was down 27% in total viewers and 37% in the A25-54 demo compared to the previous year.