Lisa Wilkinson’s bid to make a TV comeback despite being accused of ‘burning bridges’
Lisa Wilkinson has had enough of the courtroom and enough of the sidelines. Friends of the TV star say she wants to be back on the small screen delivering ‘blockbuster interviews’.
Lisa Wilkinson has had enough of the courtroom and enough of the sidelines.
Friends of the TV star say she wants back on the small screen delivering “blockbuster interviews”. But some media executives say they want nothing to do with the “activist” who has committed “professional suicide” over one blockbuster already.
Her 2021 interview with former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins has earned Wilkinson one Logie, five weeks locked in a defamation battle with Bruce Lehrmann, and 13 months in the television wilderness.
But veteran news and current affairs boss Peter Meakin, a consultant to The Project and a good friend of Wilkinson, told The Weekend Australian she was ready for a comeback.
He described her as a star and said: “She’ll be back.”
“I know Lisa is keen to get back to work and I’m sure Ten would appreciate a few blockbuster interviews, not that they are easy to arrange,” Meakin said.
“Yes, she’s been off air for a while but I don’t think anyone will have forgotten her. The constant stream of publicity has kept her very much in the public eye. I’m sure her loyal followers will remain loyal.”
Wilkinson, who is managed by The Fordham Company, is described on the company’s website as having a “warm, intelligent and elegant presence” and is “one of Australia’s most admired and respected media personalities”.
But it’s not difficult to find those in the TV industry who vehemently disagree with this character assessment.
A senior TV media executive, who did not wish to be named, has known and worked with Wilkinson over the past 20 years and said that in the past she had tried to shake responsibility and blame others.
“It takes big teams to produce television and what has Lisa done?” the executive said.
“She’s thrown all of her team under the bus, so why would anyone want to bring her in to work with her?”
The former Dolly and Cleo editor has worked for all three major commercial networks: Seven, Nine and now Ten. Despite her extended absence from Ten’s programming schedule, the entire time she’s remained an employee of the network. But the relationship with her current employer soured after it was revealed she would be suing Ten, which she claims is refusing to pay her legal bills totalling more than $700,000 to defend herself in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial.
She hired her own lawyer, barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC, whose line in the proceedings has been firm: Wilkinson was just the face of the show, The Project and Ten were making the calls.
“I’ll say in the documents and we’ve gone through them very carefully. I think about 80 to 90 per cent of the material she’s not copied into … her suggestions were not taken up by the producers. So she had no decision-making power as to the final content of the broadcast,” Ms Chrysanthou said on Thursday.
Who was in charge?
The question over whether Ten or Wilkinson drove the Higgins interview could make a significant difference in Justice Michael Lee’s final judgment.
Meakin himself gave testimony in which he conceded that it would have been “desirable” that the program checked with Higgins why a contemporaneous email from an HR executive to Linda Reynolds’ chief of staff Fiona Brown showed that Higgins was given support to report her alleged rape to police. The Project reported otherwise.
During the trial, Wilkinson also gave evidence that made national headlines when she hit back at Lehrmann’s barrister, Matthew Richardson SC, saying she didn’t want to be portrayed as a “cheap tabloid journalist”.
Wilkinson also criticised her colleagues involved in the TV interview. At one point after the editorial team received a response about the allegations by the federal government, she claimed: “I was largely out of the picture.”
Both Wilkinson and Ten were contacted but did not comment.
Once the golden girl of breakfast TV, there was no love lost after she departed Nine’s Today show having co-anchored the program alongside Karl Stefanovic and went on to position herself as a poster girl for pay parity.
Sources familiar with why she left Nine said the pay parity narrative was more complex.
Seven were chasing Stefanovic in 2017 and he got a significant pay rise to stay at Nine. Wilkinson found out and demanded the same, but she didn’t get it and soon after was axed by the network.
The TV media executive said this week: “No mainstream media organisation would touch her in the realm of news and current affairs. She’s totally committed professional suicide with what she has been shown to have done.
“The way she left Nine, even though the narrative was she was standing up for pay equity and female rights, it is not the case …
“She’s burned bridges at Seven, she’s burned bridges at Nine, she’s burned bridges at Ten, so in terms of mainstream commercial TV where else has she got to go.”
Asked whether the ABC would hire her the response, the executive said the taxpayer-funded broadcaster was unlikely to have the funds to pay Wilkinson anything close to the big salaries she had been paid during her long-running career.
Wilkinson’s decision to move to Ten in 2017 came after reports she rejected a $1.8m a year package to stay at Nine, but it is understood her salary now remains a seven-digit figure annually and her contract continues into 2024.
Another senior TV executive, who would not be named, said Wilkinson had gone from being the “darling of TV” when she worked with Stefanovic, to a “problem wherever she goes”.
The executive also noted that in recent years Wilkinson had exposed her political stripes and started partaking in activism journalism.
“It’s like everybody: your time comes for a period of time and then opportunity goes at some point, she was pretty good for a while there and got ahead of herself,” the executive said.
“She became too much of an activist and became more of a lecturer than an interviewer and that increased when she went to Ten because you go there for a left-wing lecture.
“You try and tread the line of being down the middle and she was going the other way, fuelled by her cheer squad.”
Political leaning
Wilkinson became a harsh critic of former prime minister Scott Morrison, issuing a scathing take-down of him after his 2022 election defeat and she also condemned former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian during the Covid-19 pandemic.
After Morrison’s crushing defeat she posted on X: “Last night’s result proves that if you look the other way when it comes to women, the planet, corruption, bad behaviour and a refugee family who want to do nothing more than live a safe life in a country town that loves them, change is always going to happen.”
And while Melbourne was living through six harsh lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic, Wilkinson who lives in a mansion on Sydney Harbour was lashing out at the NSW government on The Project, saying: “Gladys Berejiklian makes no restrictions, she’s doing nothing, the soft lockdown continues … She’s stuffed this … the lockdown was not hard enough and people wanted a hard lockdown.
Last night’s result proves that if you look the other way when it comes to women, the planet, corruption, bad behaviour & a refugee family who want to do nothing more than live a safe life in a country town that loves them, change is always going to happen.#insiders#AusVotes22
— Lisa Wilkinson (@Lisa_Wilkinson) May 22, 2022
“I think I speak on behalf of just about everybody that is watching these press conferences … they are almost unwatchable.”
Wilkinson, who originated from Campbelltown in Sydney’s southwestern suburbs, thought it was wise to speak on the behalf of many other NSW residents before returning home to the multi-million-dollar abode she owns with husband Peter FitzSimons.
In her testimony at Lehrmann’s defamation trial, it was revealed that she texted The Project producer Angus Llewellyn on February 15, 2021, during question time before her TV interview with Higgins was to air and said: “Have you been watching question time, lots of focus on the story, Penny Wong magnificent, (Linda) Reynolds lying through her teeth.”
Dramas pile up
TV producer Rob McKnight, co-editor of website TV Blackbox, said although Wilkinson was one of the most “credible witnesses” in the defamation trial, problems for her continued.
“It … showed that she was certainly biased when it came to Brittany Higgins and what that means for the future is interesting because there’s no doubt that she is at odds with Channel 10,” he said.
“She’s been at 7, 9 and I don’t think there’s any way back in this climate for her to return to commercial television, they are just not paying the kind of wages that they used to. Gone are the days of the big deals.”
Following her disastrous Logies speech that delayed Lehrmann’s rape trial by months, the former magazine editor and Beauty and the Beast panellist told The Project viewers on November 20 last year: “The last six months have not been easy. And the relentless targeted toxicity by some sections of the media has taken a toll, not just on me, but on people I love.
“Don’t get me wrong: I’m not above criticism. Far from it. I’m human, and I don’t always get it right. But by God, I’ve tried. I’ve given this job everything I have.”
Paramount executive vice president Beverley McGarvey said at the time Wilkinson would be “sorely missed both by our audience and the entire Project team” but added, “we look forward to continuing our strong relationship with Lisa into 2023 and beyond”.
Wilkinson never returned to the screens.
McKnight queried what’s next for Wilkinson once her contract at Ten ended. “It will be quite a few years before we see Lisa back on TV in any significant role,” he said.
“She might do a little arts program, or a documentary, she could end up doing a podcast with Mia Freedman but that’s not going to be a big money maker.”
Brand ‘damage’
McKnight said Wilkinson’s brand for now was “damaged”.
“Brands can change and turn around. I think the trial did a lot of good for Lisa, whatever the outcome is and I think it showed she is genuine about what she believes in,” McKnight said.
“I think where her brand is damaged is the big fuss she made about leaving the Today show, going to The Project and not drawing a significant audience.”
Another TV executive who has worked in the industry for decades and did not wish to be named was more scathing of Wilkinson, saying “she’s burnt bridges” everywhere.
“I don’t think she will work in this town again, I think her and the pirate (FitzSimons) will move to France,” the executive said.
In Wilkinson’s book, titled It Wasn’t Meant to Be Like This and released in 2021, she was damning of Stefanovic and wrote in detail about his behaviour on the morning in 2017 when she was told by Nine management her services would no longer be required.
Many recollections were challenged and resulted in the spread of footage that quashed her falsehoods that Stefanovic did not ask her that day about her second honeymoon with FitzSimons.
Video evidence emerged that showed Stefanovic turning to her on set and he said: “It’s a big welcome back to Lisa, nice to see you again. How was your honeymoon?”
And while Wilkinson knows – particularly as a former magazine editor – that celebrity shots have for decades been part of the business, she was criticised last year for labelling a photographer an “old creepy guy” after the Daily Mail published an article including pictures of her dining alone in a Melbourne restaurant.
The photographer identified himself as Steve and said he took offence at being labelled an “old creepy guy”.
“I’m actually 10 years younger than you are so, Lisa, what does that make you?” he wrote.
“An ‘old woman’. Of course not, and shame on anyone who refers to you as that because it’s degrading, sexist and downright offensive.”
