How Nine blew it on Lisa Wilkinson

IN refusing to give her the same pay as her co-star Karl Stefanovic, Nine lost Lisa Wilkinson. And they’ve made a big mistake — huge, writes Holly Byrnes.

KERRY Packer, arguably the greatest TV deal-maker that ever lived, famously said once, after his bargain buy back of the Nine Network for a sweet song: “you only get one Alan Bond in your lifetime.”

Ask anyone in the industry today and the quote could be easily adapted to Nine boss Hugh Marks’ negotiations with Lisa Wilkinson.

Only he just blew it and for a lot less than it cost Bond, or Packer, or his TV rivals at Ten.

Lisa, always the better half of Nine’s breakfast show, Today, rightly put a price on her skills, her value to the network, and Marks clearly just didn’t see it.

That price was $2 million, or the same money her co-host Karl Stefanovic has reportedly commanded since inking his own deal last year for doing the same job she did.

Now that their ‘once in a lifetime’ Lisa is gone, Nine’s news bosses will no doubt still kid themselves they’ve ended up with the better deal, using the same flawed logic they tried on Lisa and failed.

That Karl is worth more because he “does more.”

There’s the reporting duties he does very occasionally for 60 Minutes, not to mention hosting the very average, This Time Next Year.

Lisa Wilkinson wanted pay parity with her co-star Karl Stefanovic. (Pic: Channel Nine)

Forgetting of course, the “extras” Lisa contributed beyond Today — including but not limited to leaving her family each year to spend Christmas Eve co-hosting Carols By Candlelight; or the seemingly full-time cheerleader role she has played, defending her co-host since the catastrophic fallout from his divorce.

But it was the dirty little secret Nine’s negotiators apparently made the mistake of showing Lisa at the beginning of her contract renewal conversations six months ago that seem to have done them in: research confirming she was by far and away the show’s most valuable player, luring in the kind of female-friendly advertising revenue which made Karl’s pay rise possible.

It’s also worth revisiting what his stocks were worth when Lisa joined the Today show 10 years ago: not much, especially with women, who found his treatment of former co-host Jessica Rowe childish, blokey and at times, just plain mean.

That bad taste lingered long after Jessica had been so cruelly “boned” by previous management, when female viewers left the once top-rating show in droves.

It was Lisa’s firm hand with him and whip smart brain which helped all but right the ship.

When ‘Captain Karl’ began winning back the ladies it was, ironically, after fighting his own silent war on equality, by wearing the same suit for most of a year so as to make the point Lisa was expected to shoulder a greater burden of criticism over her daily fashion choices than he did.

Lisa Wilkinson and Ben Fordham won three days out of five in the ratings while hosting while Karl Stefanovic was on leave. (Pic: Stephen Cooper)

Or any other man on TV for that matter.

At the time there were big ups for Karl, with no one more grateful or supportive of him than Lisa.

And up his popularity points climbed in the process.

Except, and here’s the kick in the guts for Lisa — and every woman out there doing more and getting less — on pure numbers, ratings figures and market research, Lisa was head and shoulders more popular than Karl.

Those figures came into stark focus recently when Karl took a holiday with his young love, leaving the show in Lisa’s hands with his mate Ben Fordham filling in.

In a year when Sunrise has again won the ratings (every week in the combined five-city metro and regionals, for both calendar and survey years so far), Nine has taken every opportunity to celebrate their successes: just not so loudly when Ben and Lisa won three days out of the five nationally, repeating what they’d achieved together two months earlier.

When Karl returned a week later, the winning run was over.

I have some news. I'm sad to say that today was my last day on @the today show. The following statement is from Channel Nine... pic.twitter.com/B3IVDAfkSm

— Lisa Wilkinson (@Lisa_Wilkinson) October 16, 2017

It won’t take Today’s finance guru, Ross Greenwood long to also figure that the $200,000 Nine baulked at in the end, which would have given Lisa and Karl pay parity, will be almost instantly lost in advertisers who signed on just for her; or in the price of the PR hit the show and Karl especially will inevitably take.

It’s in crunching these numbers that Marks should have been given pause for thought, and the money men their reason to give Lisa exactly what she asked for and deserved.

No more and no less than the man reportedly losing them the ratings on their flagship show.

But if they didn’t see her value, then the audience will for almost certain.

And now, with Lisa signed on to host The Sunday Project and other network opportunities beckoning, it’s Ten’s turn to reap the reward.

A Gold Logie in 2018 would be a nice place to start and she’ll surely get my vote.

Just like Packer, and most of Today’s audience, we know a ‘once in a lifetime’ talent when we see it.

Originally published as How Nine blew it on Lisa Wilkinson