Kelly has long mused publicly about how she would love to host a long-form interview show that would be part Oprah, part Charlie Rose, and perhaps part Barbara Walters. The person close to Kelly told me that she appears to be playing the field because she “has a contractual understanding and a personal obligation that she can do diligence and find out what is going on, and it’s my belief that she is still in that process.” This person also added that Kelly is valuing a potential interview platform as much as money itself.

But so far, the purported auction for Kelly’s services has not come to fruition. One CNN insider explained, “of course we would love to have her,” before noting that poaching Kelly, given the likely cost of her contract, “is not something we are seriously considering.” Instead, this person elaborated, CNN is investing more in documentary-style programming after the election. “I don’t believe anyone is pursuing her other than Fox at this point,” said one ABC insider. A source close to CBS said that they are not making an offer, either. (The person close to Kelly noted that discussions with rival executives were ongoing.)

In fact, Kelly’s attempt to spread her wings and show that she is more than just a nightly cable-news host may work against her. An executive close to ABC told me that Kelly’s performance during her heavily promoted prime-time interview with Trump was particularly damaging to her perceived ability to “translate” to a morning show, where anchors are typically paid more handsomely than their prime-time counterparts. For Kelly, the Trump interview was intended to patch up her feud with the candidate and show her softer side. But the event was a critical and ratings disappointment. After that, “it was never a sort of concerted effort to think about what [Kelly] could look like [at ABC],” the executive told me.

Such a lofty price tag, after all, can be hard to square with the vicissitudes of the ratings games. Kelly's nightly nine P.M. show, The Kelly File, draws ratings that are typically second only to The O’Reilly Factor at eight P.M. But in recent weeks, it has occasionally slipped behind The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC and Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN. (Her recent on-air confrontation with Newt Gingrich, however, became a viral sensation and dominated a news cycle.) Multiple conservative outlets have attributed the occasional ratings dip to a Trump-supporter boycott of her show. As evidence, news reports noted the ratings surge for Sean Hannity’s show. (Kelly, for what it is worth, was recently spotted breaking bread with Ivanka Trump.)

A surprisingly cool market may have Kelly and Fox News sending public signals to each other. Last week, Rupert Murdoch himself went on the record in his very own organ, The Wall Street Journal, to express his desire to retain Kelly—and to sign a deal “very soon.” Though he did appear to note the limits of his own desires by remarking, rather pointedly, that many other broadcasters would “give their right arm to have her job.” (The person close to Kelly surmised that the Murdochs may be trying to scare everyone else off, but conversations are still ongoing.) Kelly, for her part, concluded a show last week touting the network’s nearly complete remodeled studio as a triumph that only Fox News could accomplish.

As all the TV news networks look toward the terrifying future beyond the 2016 election, the strange dynamic of the non-auction auction for Kelly’s talent may reflect the declining rewards of television-news stardom—and, on a deeper level, the changes to the business, itself. Of course, Kelly’s contract doesn’t officially end for another eight months and circumstances may change, but the major platforms in daytime, prime time, and evening news seem to be busy pursuing other strategies concurrent with the disintegrating notions of traditional networks and time slots as the broadcast business embraces the race for digital and over-the-top options. The Murdoch brothers look likely to win the battle to keep her, but in doing so they may experience the winner’s curse, an economic catch-22 wherein the winner of an auction pays more than the intrinsic value of the entity up for grabs.