Highly paid Nine stars facing massive pay cuts

Leila McKinnon and Karl Stefanovic at the top of a list of network stars who are considered overpaid by network bosses and with many contracts under review, there are some hefty pay cuts on the cards.

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Leila McKinnon is among a list of stars whose contract is now under review at Nine as the TV broadcaster looks to shave millions from its news budget.

McKinnon joins Karl Stefanovic at the top of a list of network stars who are considered overpaid by network bosses now being forced to justify every dollar spent within Nine’s historically high-spending and inflated news division.

Leila McKinnon.

McKinnon, wife of Nine board director David Gyngell, is understood to have already had the axe taken to her $450,000-a-year contract — one that saw her retained in a part-time capacity to essentially play fill-in host for A Current Affair anchor Tracy Grimshaw during the summer months.

Stefanovic, meanwhile, has been asked to take a seven-figure pay cut that would bring him down to about $800,000 from $3 million — just a shave more than newsreader Georgie Gardner is said to have negotiated for herself when she joined Today following the departure of Lisa Wilkinson from that show in 2017.

Gardner, on $750,000, is also viewed as an expensive signing for what has evolved, after the failed Today experiment, into a two-nights-a-week weekend newsreading commitment.

Also understood to be on Nine news boss Darren Wick’s “under review” list is Deb Knight, the newsreader partnered with Gardner on Today for one controversial year in 2019.

Karl Stefanovic. Picture: Chris Hyde/Getty Images

Knight, on a contract of about $600,000, was once considered value for money on TV but within its radio division — where she found herself at the start of this year after being shed from Today and recommissioned as afternoons presenter on 2GB — Knight is regarded as being overpaid.

On maternity leave, Sylvia Jeffreys, meanwhile, is on a $400,000-plus contract she negotiated when she was cut from the Today show at the end of 2017.

She will return to television, post-maternity leave, as co-host of Today Extra alongside David Campbell in July.

Whether she can deliver there remains to be seen but with two more years to run on her four-year contract, her salary looks safe for the time being.

Deborah Knight and Georgie Gardner. Picture: Jerad Williams

Also understood to be safe from the next round of cuts are newsreader Peter Overton and A Current Affair’s Tracy Grimshaw.

Less safe, with $5 million to be shed from 60 Minutes in the short term, are its reporters Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Charles Wooley, Liam Bartlett and Sarah Abo.

U nlike Seven, which instigated 20 per cent pay cuts to staff in April, Nine is trimming more purposefully, leaving many nervous.

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Originally published as Highly paid Nine stars facing massive pay cuts