Annette Sharp: Hostile backlash for Karl Stefanovic at ‘9GB’

When Alan Jones ended up in hospital this week, Nine sent two of its TV hosts — Deb Knight and Karl Stefanovic — to fill in the void. One excelled, the other was Karl, Annette Sharp writes.

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With Alan Jones languishing in a hospital bed last week, stricken with a debilitating case of flu, his radio bosses at 2GB — or 9GB, as radio staff have now caustically dubbed the station — offered little resistance when the instruction came down the line from new owner Nine to fill the void with a roster of its TV talent.

Afternoon show host Steve Price was shunted into Jones’s breakfast slot and into Price’s show stepped the hardest working woman on television (a term she apparently hates), Today show host Deb Knight.

Karl Stefanovic — or is it Stefananovic — on air with Ray Hadley ahead of his hosting duties. Picture: Facebook

Knight proved herself a dab hand — making three hours of live chat sound so easy Nine bosses figured anyone could do the job — and sent Karl Stefanovic in to bat the next day.

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Stefanovic — or ‘‘Stefananovic’’ as he was listed on the 2GB website — wasted absolutely no time proving his bosses wrong.

Turns out, anyone can’t do the job.

He was soon laughing heartily at his own tired jokes (“they call me the Steven Bradbury of 2GB”), unconvincingly serving up an attack on Greens protesters, chatting to his Nine colleague Simon “my man” Bouda on the anniversary of the Thredbo disaster (Stefanovic seemingly missing the sober tone of the segment and offered as his great insight into the disaster that survivor Stuart Diver “doesn’t mind a Schnapps …”), repeatedly plugging XXXX beer — and supplicating 2GB regulars Price and Hadley with nicknames ‘‘Stevie’’ and ‘‘Raymondo’’.

And that was all before the end of the first hour of a two-shift six-hour stint.

Listener feedback to ‘‘Stefananovic’s’’ ‘‘9GB’’ appearance was swift and absolute.

“Why on earth was that has-been on air today. I’m about done with this radio station. It’s a joke,” Linda posted to the 2GB Facebook page.

“Take a hike Karl,” wrote Shane.

“Hitting the bottom of the barrel with Karl. I won’t listen,” wrote Maree.

“I won’t be listening to him on air, can’t stand the blockhead,” stated another.

Internally, sources felt he was underprepared and short on detail concerning segments, unlike Knight.

Karl who?

Some 2GB listeners weren’t too impressed with the new host.

After two days — and a day-two interview between Stefanovic and Knight — Stefanovic mercifully departed the airwaves having plugged his upcoming TV show This Time Next Year the requisite number of times.

By Thursday veteran presenter John Stanley, a former 2UE star and now 2GB’s resident fill-in man, had the reins.

Meanwhile, on his 2GB drive radio show — the man once groomed to replace Stefanovic
on Today, Ben Fordham — was busy talking up Nine’s Ninja Warrior prime-time program, which he also hosts.

Hadley, too, was filling his 9GB quota, dedicating time across two days to interviews with Stefanovic and the host of Nine’s The Block, Scott Cam — while Nine’s weather girl Amber Sherlock presented weather on Price’s afternoon show — and Erin Molan and Phil Gould contributed to shows later in the week.

The shuffling came about with Alan Jones in hospital. Picture: Instagram

Hadley rightly speculated that with Stefanovic now on radio, Hadley may himself soon have a bright future on television.

“We’re part of the Nine family now … this could be a test case and you never know, I might be hosting the Today show this time next year. Anything could happen,” he said.

Hadley, who Jones is said to have barred from hosting his breakfast show following complaints from Jones’s staff during a previous fill-in stint, went out of his way to make repeated mentions of Jones on-air last week — stating that he was broadcasting from “The Alan Jones building” and making an off-hand remark about the precarious state of radio “before Alan saved us”.

Might this suggest the two warring men are now on better terms?

Apparently not, say insiders, observing that Hadley always seems lighter when Jones isn’t around.

Originally published as Annette Sharp: Hostile backlash for Karl Stefanovic at ‘9GB’