Hamish Blake is getting paid more than Karl Stefanovic

Karl Stefanovic’s salary from Nine is reportedly huge but there’s a wild detail in his pay packet that we’ve all missed.

OPINION

Hamish Blake is getting paid more than Karl Stefanovic and I think Karl is being undervalued and needs to get on the blower to the big dogs at Nine.

Media Diary has reported that Hamish is getting $2 million a year for hosting Nine’s Lego Masters and Karl is getting $1.5 million a year to host Nine’s Today Show.

Both men are on a ridiculous salary. I think we can safely assume that neither has to go to Aldi for their basics and then trek over to Woolworths or Coles for their Latina pasta sauce.

Hamish Blake has a larger salary. Picture: Belinda Rolland, 2022/AGNSW

Karl is earning less than Hamish. Picture: Instagram

I hate to say it, but Karl is being shortchanged here. Hamish’s gig with Nine is luxury in comparison.

The former radio star rocks up for half the year, shoots around 60 episodes and gets to watch people build Lego.

Sure, there’s some work involved, and it has to razzle dazzle the press to sell the show, but I don’t think anyone would call it a gruelling schedule.

Meanwhile, Karl Stefanovic is up at the crack of dawn almost every day of the year and heading into North Sydney to discuss everything from politics to weight loss trends and this is all before most of us have even had our morning coffee.

I understand media money is based on star power but we can’t sit here and pretend that Australia isn’t obsessed with Karl.

We’ve even forgiven him for divorcing his wife of 20 years Cassandra Thorburn and swanning around on yachts in the aftermath.

Sure, there was that brief period in 2018 when he was booted from Today but by 2020 he was back in his chair and mostly forgiven.

We love him so much that we all pretty much agreed that Karl was the victim when footage emerged of Michael Clarke rousing on him while hobbling around a park in Noosa in the dark.

“Not our Karl” was the vibe.

Karl is a golden boy for Nine. Picture: Instagram

Karl is an iconc morning show host. Picture: Nine.

Karl’s put in the hard yards.

He gets up early, he occasionally hosts a random show for Nine that doesn’t make it past two seasons and he has enduring affection for Richard Wilkins that no other co-host seems to be able to muster up.

If this was a relationship I’d say that Karl is putting in the work. He is showing up and is prepared to compromise.

Interestingly even Lisa Wilkinson Karl’s former Today co-host is reported to have been earning $2 million a year at Network 10 and she was getting to sleep in and just host 10’s The Project a couple of nights a week.

Is everyone getting paid more than Karl for doing less? I shudder to think what Samantha Armytage is getting paid just to show up on Seven’s Farmer Wants A Wife in an akubra while pretending she knows who any of the contestants are.

This isn’t a diss on Hamish, the man is clearly one of the famous, talented and likeable men we have in Australian entertainment, but Karl’s works harder and should be getting paid the biggest bucks.