Channel 9 denies salary leak is causing tension on Today show

Channel 9 has issued a blunt response after a report listing the exorbitant salaries of its high-profile talent was published.

Channel 9 has strongly denied a report listing the exorbitant salaries of its high-profile talent.

The Australian last week published a series of TV stars’ annual pay cheques, including Today host Karl Stefanovic, who reportedly makes $1.5 million per year, and his new co-host Sarah Abo, who joined the breakfast show at the start of this year to replace Allison Langdon, and is said to net around $800,000.

News.com.au has been told the alleged $700,000 pay gap between Stefanovic and Abo has since caused “tension” between the new co-hosts.

“I’ve heard that things are very tense at Today after those salaries were published. Relations between Karl and Sarah were already a bit strained and this has made things a lot worse,” a TV insider told us.

Sarah joined Karl on the Today desk earlier this year.

They added, “It’s history repeating itself. Remember the pay gap between Karl and Lisa [Wilkinson], which eventually saw Lisa quit.”

Further, news.com.au understands Langdon made $1 million annually on Today, which she co-hosted for three years.

However, Nine’s director of morning television Steven Burling strongly denied reports of tension on-set, while also claiming the reported salaries were “not even remotely correct”.

“The salary figures for our network talent published last week in various outlets were not even remotely correct. Anyone who watches Today can confirm there’s absolutely no tension on set,” Mr Burling said.

“We couldn’t be happier with our talented line-up of Karl, Sarah, Brooke, Alex and Tim who are working well and having a great time - end of story.”

Nine did not respond to our question about a pay gap between Stefanovic and Abo.

Today is behind Sunrise in year-to-date ratings. Picture: Mark Stewart

It comes after reports declining ratings were also causing a headache for executives behind the long-running breakfast program.

Year-to-date average national audience numbers show Sunrise holds a 34 per cent lead on Today with 363,000 average viewers compared to Today at 271,000.

The gap between the rival brekky shows was growing narrower throughout 2021, though ratings for last year and into 2023 appear to show it widening again.

It’s certainly not the first time Today has weathered a pay gap storm.

Wilkinson famously left the show and Channel 9 after 10 years in 2017, claiming she’d been axed after asking for a salary increase to match Stefanovic, who was said to be earning around $2 million against her $1.1 million.

Reports amid her departure claimed that Wilkinson stood to secure a $700,000 pay rise, with her take home pay rising to $1.8 million following lengthy negotiations.

Nine Network’s then chief executive officer, Hugh Marks, hit out at Wilkinson at the time, publicly claiming she was offered a $1.8 million salary package but wanted $2.3 million – which would have pushed her well above Stefanovic’s then annual salary of $2 million.

“I went to an incredible amount of trouble to build that [$1.8 million] package for her. She wanted $2.3 million. It wasn’t a $200,000 shortfall to [Karl’s] $2 million magic number. It was $500,000,” Marks said to The Daily Telegraph.

Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson hosted the program together for over a decade. Picture: The Australian

Wilkinson swiftly rubbished that figure, telling the publication that Marks’ comment was “completely untrue” and that the figure he named “is not even remotely close” to what they had discussed.

In Wilkinson’s 2021 autobiography It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This, she also called out Stefanovic personally, revealing the duo proposed they negotiate over pay together – before Stefanovic abandoned her to make his own multimillion-dollar deal.

“Karl said that with Georgie (Gardner) gone, and Ben (Fordham) having left to concentrate more on his radio career outside of Nine, we were the heart and soul of the show,” Wilkinson wrote.

“Without us, he said, the network would be screwed. They needed us like never before. He wanted us to present to Nine as one entity, an unbreakable duo, with a dual contract on equal pay.”

But Wilkinson claimed Stefanovic’s plan for them was ultimately cast aside. Instead, she – along with the rest of the public – read the news in December that year that Stefanovic had signed a new $2m deal to stay with Nine, after rumours that he was considering jumping ship to Seven.

“He (Karl) had played both networks off against each other brilliantly and in full public view,” she writes. “There was no doubt about it: Karl certainly knew the art of the deal.”