New A Current Affair host Allison Langdon takes hefty pay cut

Allison Langdon has been confirmed as Tracy Grimshaw’s replacement on A Current Affair. Annette Sharp has the inside scoop on her contract negotiations.

Ally Langdon held out for weeks before signing on to host A Current Affair, after baulking at a hefty six-figure pay cut proposed by Channel 9 bosses.

The soon-to-depart Today co-host has been on a premium contract for the past three years as co-anchor of the Nine breakfast show, a role that has had her sharing a couch with Nine’s highest paid star, Karl Stefanovic, for 17½ hours a week.

Nine has now confirmed Langdon will fill Tracy Grimshaw’s shoes in 2023 for “a new era” of the show, with 60 Minutes reporter Sarah Abo set to take her place on The Today Show.

“In 2023 Ally Langdon will step into the host chair of A Current Affair following the retirement of longtime host Tracy Grimshaw. Welcome to the team Ally!” ACA’s official channel tweeted on Sunday night.

“It is such an incredible honour to be joining the A Current Affair team. A show I love, respect and have been watching since I was in school and Jana Wendt was host,” Langdon told the network.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: One of Australia’s most fearless and respected journalists, Ally Langdon, has been announced as the new host of A Current Affair following the retirement of longtime host Tracy Grimshaw.

Welcome Ally!#9ACA | Watch LIVE 7pm pic.twitter.com/3HJKN8isd9

— A Current Affair (@ACurrentAffair9) November 27, 2022

“I won’t lie – it’s daunting to be stepping into the role that Tracy has so brilliantly navigated for the past 17 years, with such warmth and compassion. I hope to bring my own warmth and compassion to the show as we continue to tell great stories that matter to our amazing viewers.”

Sources inside Nine claim when TV executives came calling with the offer for Langdon to replace Tracy Grimshaw at ACA, Langdon hesitated when told the prime-time job – which equates to a much smaller 2½-hour-a-week on-air commitment – would come with a hefty pay cut worth about $250,000 a year, down from her $1 million-a-year Today contract.

Allison Langdon had to take a significant pay cut when she accepted the job hosting ACA.

Grimshaw is understood to have been on an annual package worth about $750,000.

After weeks of protracted negotiations, Langdon is said to have secured a better deal than Grimshaw in talks that are understood to have stalled until as recently as a week ago.

The outcome might go some way to explaining Grimshaw’s snub of Langdon during her departure from the ACA studio on Thursday night, when Grimshaw hugged men to the left and right of Langdon but not her heir-apparent.

After Langdon, in good humour, later complained of being “brushed” by the veteran journalist, the retiring ACA host apologised via text, saying she hadn’t seen Langdon’s “petite head once Karl’s big boofhead loomed into vision. Argh, big sorry”.

Langdon reacts after outgoing ACA host Tracy Grimshaw appears to snub her. Picture: Channel 9

Langdon’s contract negotiations bring into the spotlight reports that claimed she had achieved pay parity with Stefanovic when she signed on to Today in 2019.

It now appears those reports were incorrect.

Stefanovic reportedly earns $1.5 million a year, after his contract was famously slashed in 2020 following his return to Today a year after he was controversially axed in December 2018, amid a storm of scandals and negative headlines that eroded the program’s ratings, which are yet to recover.

Sarah Abo will move from 60 Minutes to fill Langdon’s shoes co-hosting The Today Show.

It was Stefanovic’s long-time co-host Lisa Wilkinson who famously attempted to put pay parity on the agenda at Nine, after she failed to achieve it during difficult contract negotiations in 2017 that ended with her leaving the network.

As reported by your columnist at the time, Stefanovic was then earning almost double Wilkinson’s salary on a package worth between $2 million and $3 million.

Former Today co-host Lisa Wilkinson was never able to achieve pay parity with Karl Stefanovic. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

Langdon’s appointment alongside a contrite Stefanovic in 2019 gave Nine a chance to redeem itself in the eyes of female viewers when it was reported Langdon had achieved the pay parity that had eluded Wilkinson.

Understood to have given Langdon leverage in her negotiations for ACA has been the leg injury she sustained on Today last year during a failed hydrofoiling stunt, from which arose a potential compensation claim.

After her televised fall, Langdon posted to social media and gave media interviews detailing the extent of her “horrible” injuries and her repeated surgeries, one of which occurred earlier this year.

“I snapped the leg, I did the kneecap, I did the ligaments,” she told Nova’s Fitzy and Wippa program.

“I shattered the kneecap, snapped the leg, did the PCL, the meniscus … the tibia snapped.” When Langdon returned to work in March 2021, a month after the accident, she wore a large brace over her knee and employed a wheelchair and crutches to navigate the Today set.

Her serious injuries aside, no one believes Langdon, due to start next year in the role, won’t be a good fit for ACA.

60 Minutes’ Sarah Abo will replace Langdon on Today, although it’s understood Stefanovic had been lobbying for news correspondent Amelia Adams, who recently joined 60 Minutes.

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