How Karl Stefanovic’s fate was sealed more than a year ago
Karl Stefanovic’s fate was sealed long before his cringe-worthy boat frolic with younger lover Jasmine Yarbrough. He was doomed the moment Georgie Gardner signed on as Today Show co-host. Annette Sharp has the exclusive intel.
Confidential
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When Georgie Gardner was offered the plum co-host role on Today following the shock departure of Lisa Wilkinson in October last year, she hesitated.
Few women would think twice about accepting an offer to host the longest-running breakfast show on TV — a role that made household names of Sue Kellaway, Liz Hayes, Tracy Grimshaw and Wilkinson. Yet Gardner did.
She knew she could cope with the gruelling routine, the early starts, the separation from her children, the travel — factors that had contributed to her resigning as Today’s newsreader in 2014.
It was the prospect of being reunited with Karl Stefanovic, the program’s host — a man whose undisciplined on-air japes she detested, whose chauvinistic schoolboy mannerisms and toilet humour she despised — that troubled her.
She declined the offer.
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Convinced only one woman could fill the shoes of the immensely popular Wilkinson, Nine CEO Hugh Marks committed himself to persuading Gardner.
Initially he sweetened the deal financially, increasing her newsreader salary from $500,000 to $750,000 a year, a quarter of Stefanovic’s salary.
When Gardner remained reluctant, sources claim Marks made her a promise.
He told Gardner her happiness would become his paramount priority concerning Today.
If Stefanovic didn’t treat her with the respect she deserved or further compromised the program’s reputation Nine management would replace him.
The call would be 47-year-old Gardner’s to make, she need only to tell him.
The offer was what she needed. Gardner accepted the deal.
Four months later the Ubergate scandal would test Marks’ pledge.
He moved quickly to reassure Gardner that her offsider would be dealt with firmly after she, her colleagues and Nine management were insulted when an Uber driver went to New Idea, owned by Nine’s rival media company Seven, with a recording of Karl and younger brother Peter Stefanovic’s off-air conversation.
The brothers offered a public apology singling out Gardner who, Stefanovic said, “was killing it”.
By mid-year, Marks and Gardner had bonded so tightly that the pair enjoyed a family holiday together at Gardner’s South Coast beach house.
She and Marks were known to have a pre-existing friendship as neighbours in Artarmon, where their children were playmates.
The holiday raised eyebrows at Nine and left no one — certainly not Stefanovic — in any doubt concerning Gardner’s rising network status and influence.
The newsreader from Perth was fast becoming the most powerful woman on air at Nine.
By the time Stefanovic was putting the garish finishing touches to his December wedding, Marks and Nine’s Director of News and Current Affairs Darren Wick had come up with a plan they hoped would quarantine Gardner from what was shaping up as a Mexican media fiasco largely arranged by Stefanovic’s manager Sharon Finnigan and his bride Jasmine Yarbrough’s emboldened New York PR team.
Nine management would extend Gardner’s summer holiday by two weeks — effectively giving her six weeks off air instead of the usual four — to buffer her from any potential fallout related to Stefanovic’s wedding.
It would also protect her from any flack associated with Today executive producer Mark Calvert’s decision to stand down, who had failed to arrest Today’s declining ratings during his five-year tenure.
Calvert’s departure was announced on December 5, five days after Gardner began her extended holiday.
Despite Calvert’s standing down, Marks and Wick still planned for Gardner and Stefanovic to return to air together at the helm of Today on January 14, earlier than usual, to capitalise on the appeal of the new jewel in Nine’s sports programming portfolio, the Australian Open Tennis.
But negative post-wedding media coverage put paid to those plans when Who Weekly, another magazine title owned by rival Seven, published photographs of the wedding and deprived Nine’s various platforms of the content.
A week later when New Idea aired speculation Gardner had been paid “hush money” by Nine to weather the Ubergate controversy, Nine management — “incandescent with rage” — made the call.
Stefanovic had to go. Today and Gardner had been brought into disrepute.
Marks called a meeting with Stefanovic’s manager Finnigan and on Wednesday Stefanovic, then still on honeymoon in the US, was summoned to a conference call, party to which were Nine’s lawyers.
That afternoon Nine confirmed Stefanovic had “stepped down” from Today following a 14-year-run.
It was a reprimand that had been a long time coming and that Stefanovic had repeatedly invited over his years at Today.
For some at Nine, the writing was on the wall in the early months of his relationship with Yarbrough after management asked him to be careful not to flaunt his new relationship following his recent marriage breakdown from wife Cass Thorburn.
Stefanovic responded by accepting an invitation to a party on a Sydney yacht where he was photographed being intimate with Yarbrough.
On Friday, Nine denied Gardner had played a hand in Stefanovic’s dismissal. A spokesman said: “The decision was made solely by management.”
Insiders maintain that by the time the call was made, Marks knew Gardner’s mind so well she hardly needed consulting.
Nine is now expected to rebuild Today around Gardner. A Nine insider said: “All traces of Stefanovic DNA will be purged.”
With Stefanovic and his brother Peter, who left Nine a week earlier, now jettisoned from the program, newsreader Sylvia Jeffreys, who is married to Peter, will follow. Nine has confirmed the redeployment of Jeffreys to prime time in a yet-to-be-confirmed role.
Strong rumours at Nine suggest Jeffreys may find herself presenting the weather report on the evening news, an appointment that could give news bosses the chance to shed Amber Sherlock, whose career has been tainted since “Jacketgate” in January last year when she was captured verbally slapping down colleague Julie Snook over her similar on-air wardrobe.
Also to be shed from Today are entertainment reporter and serial party-boy Richard Wilkins and sports presenter Tim Gilbert.
Insiders say Wilkins has been signed to a new one-year contract that will see him installed at morning show Today Extra, though any big breaking interviews will be broadcast on the breakfast show where young Triple J announcer Brooke Boney was confirmed as Wilkins’ replacement on Friday.
Sources say Australian-born Extra! correspondent Renee Bargh, who is based in the US, was Nine’s first pick for the role and was contacted weeks ago. But she is locked into a contract with Telepictures Productions.
Erin Molan is hotly favoured to replace Gilbert who, according to sources, was never popular with viewers.
With Gardner more focused on serious news presentation and less predisposed to frivolous banter, Today will return to its roots as a serious news program.
Speculation continues over who will join Gardner on the desk and Wick maintains Nine is yet to make some appointments. But sources say management is steering away from talent attached to Stefanovic’s agent Finnigan.
“The program’s integrity has been compromised both inside and outside the network,” said one source. “Nine has frankly had a gutful of some managers.”
Adelaide newsreader Brenton Ragless is favoured as Stefanovic’s replacement and for the past three weeks has been “pressure tested”. But bosses also like the idea of an all-woman line-up and are considering Ali Langdon, now pregnant, and Deb Knight (who is managed by Finnigan, which could be a negative in management’s eyes), for roles.
Stefanovic meanwhile is tipped to be dispatched to Nine’s LA bureau following the return of US correspondent Lizzie Pearl.
“The cult of Karl is dead, “said one Niner on Friday. “Long live the cult of Georgie.”