Deborah Knight new co-host of Today after Karl Stefanovic ousted
In a move never seen before on Australian breakfast television, Deborah Knight will replace Karl Stefanovic to become Georgie Gardner’s co-host on Today as Nine attempts to woo over some of the female viewers who abandoned the show in droves last year.
It was the Channel 9 flagship battered by PR storms before finally being sunk by a Mexican wedding iceberg.
Now a salvage operation is under way at Today, headed by an all-female crew.
In a move never seen before on Australian breakfast television, Deborah Knight will replace Karl Stefanovic to become Georgie Gardner’s morning co-host as Nine attempts to woo over some of the female viewers who abandoned the show in droves last year.
Knight, a 46-year-old mother of three who has served as a fill-in and Weekend Today host since joining the network in 2011, was chosen over a string of rumoured male replacements for Stefanovic, including South Australian outsider Brenton Ragless and Ben Fordham.
And in another gender turnaround, Nine has appointed young up-and-comer Tom Steinfort in the news reading role previously held by Sylvia Jeffreys.
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Knight’s appointment, which follows the appointment of former ABC reporter Brooke Boney to replace entertainment editor Richard Wilkins, also kiboshed rumours that Gardner was to be joined by Allison Langdon in the hosting chair.
However Langdon, who is expecting her second child and is due to return from maternity leave in April, will co-host Weekend Today alongside David Campbell.
Campbell, meanwhile, will also co-host Today Extra with Sonia Kruger from Monday to Wednesday, with Wilkins to host Thursday and Fridays.
The new team will broadcast from the Australian Open in Melbourne for their first fortnight in a move designed to capitalise on Nine’s multimillion-dollar tennis rights deal.
The Today show has seen ratings plunge after Stefanovic left his wife Cassandra Thorburn for shoe designer Jasmine Yarbrough.
Following the infamous Uber tapes, in which Stefanovic and his journalist brother Peter were recorded criticising their colleagues at Nine, the show’s fortunes fell even further on the back of Stefanovic’s flashy Mexican nuptials last month.
Today executive producer Steve Burling, himself a new appointment after Mark Calvert’s shock departure several weeks ago, didn’t hold back about his plans to get the beleaguered breakfast show back on track.
He wants to see Knight and Gardner help lift their five-city metro ratings from 230,000 to 350,000 within six months and surpass Channel 7’s all-conquering Sunrise, which ended 2018 with 267,000 viewers.
At its lowest ebb, Today dropped to 200,000 viewers last year, a 12-year low.
“I am super competitive and I want to see the show get back to number one and I think this team will attract more numbers,” Mr Burling said.
But one rival network executive, who asked not to be named, dismissed the new line-up as “too dramatic” and said major changes to panels needed to be more subtle or viewers will “freak out”.
“Karl had to go, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But to blow up a whole show and change everything except one person, it just won’t work. It’s too much. Viewers don’t like dramatic change.”
Knight, who also filled in as host after Lisa Wilkinson’s high-profile departure, admitted it was bittersweet replacing Stefanovic, whom she described as “a great mate”.
The pair previously worked alongside each other as US correspondents.
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