There’s nobody else like Karl Stefanovic. Bring him back
Karl Stefanovic has done his time in exile, get him back on TV, writes Claire Harvey. We’re all poorer for missing out on the magic he brings to our screens with his one-in-a-generation X-factor.
Come back Karl, all is forgiven. You can even wear that blue suit. I’ll pay for the dry-cleaning.
We can get Tom Gleeson to organise you another Gold Logie: after all, it was your win in 2011, as host of the second-most-popular breakfast TV show in Australia, that inspired Gleeson to turn the Logies into a comedian’s best joke ever.
And you can do whatever you like in your private life, as long as it’s more interesting than whatever’s been happening in breakfast telly since your departure.
The travails of Today are not the fault of Georgie, Deb and Tom, who have valiantly stepped into the chasm left by Lisa Wilkinson’s exit and Karl’s implosion.
MORE FROM CLAIRE HARVEY: Israel Folau has helped expose the hardcore homophobes
But the magic that Karl brings to TV is a one-in-a-generation X-factor.
There is nobody else quite like him, as Nine has learnt to its cost.
You can’t just “rest” your network’s main male talent and expect audiences to continue switching on. And Karl has done his time in exile, I think, for the indiscreet way in which he moved on from his first marriage and the graceless Uber conversation with his brother that effectively blew up the whole family’s careers, at least temporarily.
Why Karl? Because nobody else has what he has.
He can call, at any given moment, upon any one or a whole combination of the ingredients that make someone a real celebrity.
MORE FROM CLAIRE HARVEY: After the AFP raids politicians must choose a side
I realise this sounds like a fan letter. It is.
Karl has that indefinable quality that marks the difference between a network star and a journeyman. His contemporaries are nice, talented, funny, serious, clever. They just don’t have the full package.
Hardly anyone does.
Sometimes on Today he was tired, or clearly bored, or just couldn’t be bothered calling up his A-game. Whatever.
That made it more unpredictable television.
But you don’t become an enduring star on Australian television by accident.
MORE FROM CLAIRE HARVEY: When it come to heroes, Assange is not our guy
And you can’t teach someone to radiate warmth through a television screen. You’ve got it or you haven’t. Most people on television don’t have it. They don’t have it in a big way. They’re the ones whose every live cross feels like root canal. For them and the audience.
Inside Karl’s crusty blue suit bubbles the charm of Hugh Jackman, the gravitas of Anderson Cooper, the goof of Trevor Noah. He is Matt Lauer without the creepiness; Piers Morgan without the hypocrisy.
In local terms, he’s David Koch plus sex appeal; Charlie Pickering minus the self-consciousness. It’s not his fault that the apex of Australian TV is breakfast.
We don’t have a late-night culture and all the glamour that brings, except with the very odd attempt that works out (Vizard for a while, Rove for a while).
Karl’s ability shouldn’t be underestimated because he is best suited to a format that involves crossing to the weather every 19 minutes.
MORE FROM CLAIRE HARVEY: Amid petty police politics, William Tyrrell is still missing
I think Nine began taking Karl for granted when he gave the impression of thinking he was better than breakfast television: that there was something bigger and better around the corner for him.
But none of his other ventures really suited him. Worthy late-night panel discussion wasn’t his thing. 60 Minutes was not the right fit. Heart-rending life-change stories are too hard to produce consistently.
But I suspect he’s fully aware now of the golden opportunity that breakfast television represented, and what he has lost.
Nine has lost much, much more.
Claire Harvey is the deputy editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
We’re replacing the kangaroo with this? What a waste of $10m
What happens when you get a self-serving mining billionaire whose fortune depends on the Chinese Communist Party to help rebrand Australia? A national symbol that looks like a COVID-19 cell, writes Miranda Devine.
Sorry for the scare campaign, the planet is fine
When a climate activist apologised for how environmentalists had misled the public over climate change threats, the fearmongers were not happy, especially when Greta is upping her fight, writes Miranda Devine.