Getting fired can be great for ratings. As Nine Entertainment Co confirmed its best-known morning TV star had left the network — ostensibly by mutual agreement — Karl Stefanovic’s iconoclastic podcast surged to second position on the Apple charts.
The latest episode contained exactly the kind of interviews that upset Stefanovic’s former employer. There was a rebel politician, an actress turned political agitator and a non-conforming surgeon.
Based on hundreds of comments posted by viewers, the show was a hit. “Never had time for Karl on nine but his podcasts are amazing!” one viewer wrote. “EVERY SINGLE ONE.”
Despite the podcast’s early popularity and Stefanovic’s jaunty exit — he signed off from traditional television with a click of his heels — the break up with Nine raises a fascinating question: can one of television’s best-known celebrities survive on his own?
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’ll figure it out,” he said in a video shot barefoot in a London park.
Known to millions of viewers for his roguish charm and warm laugh, Stefanovic’s off-air persona is not so different, according to people who know him.
Karl the man
Even as one of Nine’s best-paid employees, and paid more than the executives he worked for, Stefanovic has a reputation for workplace geniality. He would comfortably make small talk in the elevator at Nine’s headquarters in North Sydney and treat junior staff with respect.
Unlike some managers in the television division, he chose not to get his way through bullying. He enjoyed workplace gossip, though, especially about former co-presenter Lisa Wilkinson, who could never forgive Stefanovic for being paid more.
Even though he has a reputation as being personally disorganised, Stefanovic understands how marketplaces work. He used approaches from the Seven Network over the years to secure huge pay rises from Nine, and was reputed to earn $4 million a year in his heyday hosting the Today show and working on other Nine projects, according to industry sources.
This year would have been Stefanovic’s last on the show, Nine said on Friday. Given his salary had fallen to a reputed $2 million, the early departure may have cost him $1 million before tax. (The Sydney Morning Herald, a Nine paper, said it was unclear if his contract would be paid out.)
One report in the News Corp media on Friday said he was considering suing Nine, which would surely argue in court the inflammatory content in Stefanovic’s podcasts breached his contract. Nine’s newspapers blamed the decision to end his employment at Nine on a friendly interview with British anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson, which has been watched 370,000 times on YouTube in two days. “I really do admire your tenacity,” Stefanovic told Robinson, who has been convicted of violence and served time in jail.
Industry problems
Nine granted Stefanovic the freedom to create his own show, and is now complaining that he is using that freedom to conduct interviews that may turn off Nine viewers. The conflict between the positions might be due to the reality of television economics, which have been hit hard by the popularity of YouTube, Netflix and other video streamers.
In 2017, the year Wilkinson left as Stefanovic’s Today co-host, Nine’s advertising revenue was $610 million in the first half of the financial year. This year, the equivalent figure was $440 million, a 28 per cent drop. Streaming service subscriptions covered the shortfall, but viewers don’t sign up to Stan to watch the Today show.
The result has been falling star salaries for many years. Stefanovic, who has never been able to match Sunrise’s ratings on the Seven network, might have just become too expensive. (The Nightly is part of the same company as Seven.)
The office politics are fraught too. Stefanovic would have upset powerful forces within Nine by offering implicit support to two men considered house enemies of the company’s publishing division: neurosurgeon Charlie Teo and Victoria Cross awardee Ben Roberts-Smith.
Both men were portrayed by Nine’s papers as fake heroes in reporting that was supported by judges and celebrated with Walkley awards. At the same time, the two men have secured support among elite and popular opinion — a counter-movement and right-leaning audience Stefanovic is tapping into.
Among the fans is One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, whose rise in the polls is creating a wave that ideologically aligned journalists are riding. Senator Hanson has been on Stefanovic’s podcast. She published his Tommy Robinson interview after he removed it from the internet. Stefanovic, who has always presented himself as a patriot rather than an ideologue, now appears editorially aligned with the One Nation protest movement.
Being serious
In private, Stefanovic has sometimes expressed an interest in pursuing more serious journalism than allowed on morning television, perhaps through an evening current affairs show. He has shown that he isn’t afraid of asking politicians tough questions, both on the left and right, given the opportunity.
After the 2023 Budget he confronted Anthony Albanese with an on-air speech. “I just want to talk, if I may be so boldly on behalf of everyday Aussies,” he said on the Today show. “I think people are really struggling and most us want to know when will their bills will come down.”
The podcast, which has been running since January 22, adopts the non-confrontational style of almost all long-form interviews. The latest episode, which came out Friday morning, led with One Nation MP and former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, who was at a conservative political conference in London.
Stefanovic, who said he couldn’t afford a ticket to the conference, had access to a studio in London. Why he conducted the interview standing up in what looked like a poorly lit hotel lobby is unclear. But Stefanovic may have found he does not quite have the same pulling power as an independent journalist than on regular TV.
A reliable media performer, Mr Joyce provided entertainment by responding to Liberal MP Andrew Hastie’s comments this week that he would rather die than make political concessions to One Nation, which may target his Perth seat.
“I would rather get taken out in a box than bend the knee to One Nation,” Mr Hastie told his fellow Coalition MPs, according to Nine journalist Rob Harris. “I will never surrender to One Nation and we will do them. We will do them slowly.”
Laughing at the dramatic comments, Mr Joyce suggested Mr Hastie would compromise with One Nation if it would secure him a ministry and a $400,000-a-year salary.
“Well I don’t think we want Andrew bending down on his knees,” Mr Joyce said. “Never stand between a politician and the blue carpet of the ministers’ wing. If they get a sniff of it . . . they will be down on one knee, two knees, hands and knees, rolling around on the carpet.”
The episode quickly racked up 75,000 views, and was only beaten on Friday by a Mamamia podcast that discussed the sex life of a single mother. Coming second in such a competitive market is great, and would have generated $750 in advertising revenue based on publicly available estimates of YouTube podcast revenue — which obviously does not cover airfares to Europe.
Stefanovic has secured advertising from an outback clothing brand, Ringers Western, which he promotes by riding a horse in one of their shirts. Nonetheless, podcasting finances are challenging. Media observers believe Stefanovic will struggle financially unless he can build audiences in the US and Britain, which may not be easy for a man seen as quintessentially Australian.
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