Media Diary: Explosive dossier details high-profile TV and sports stars forever indebted to Alan Jones
A confidential ledger threatens to drag some of the nation’s biggest names into the scandal surrounding the former broadcaster.
A host of the nation’s best-known media personalities, sports stars and entrepreneurs risk getting dragged into the sexual assault scandal surrounding broadcaster Alan Jones, with police seizing a secret dossier detailing all their financial arrangements with the fallen star.
Diary can reveal detectives took possession of the confidential ledger – which lists the names of everyone Jones has lent money to, along with the precise amount borrowed – during a search of his harbourside Sydney home after his arrest last November.
Sources with knowledge of the document told Diary that Jones had maintained meticulous records of every transaction he had ever made – and that the dossier featured a who’s who of “big names” from across television, radio, racing, business and sport.
“Anyone who has ever gotten a cheque from Alan is on that list,” one source said. “He didn’t just hand out casual loans – every single one was properly registered with his accountant and he maintained thorough, up-to-date details of where each one is at.”
The list could cause embarrassment for many well-known identities, with sources suggesting the “vast majority” of people who borrowed money from Jones effectively treated his interest-free loans as free money and never bothered to pay him back.
There are fears their details could now be exposed as the former 2GB star’s legal battle weaves its way through the courts, with prosecutors able to rely on the document to argue whether various people related to the case were compromised in giving evidence.
Not that we hear Jones feels like he has received much in the way of unquestioned support from many of the names that feature on the spreadsheet since he was slapped with 35 charges over allegations he indecently assaulted, groped or inappropriately touched almost a dozen young men between 2001 and 2019 – accusations he vehemently denies.
Behind closed doors, the embattled broadcaster is apparently incensed that most of the people he helped out in their “hour of need” had deserted him in his.
“Alan has always been a sucker for a hard-luck story and he’s used his vast wealth to help out a lot of people over the years,” one well-connected insider said. “But now he feels as though they were all just using him – they took his money and now they’ve cut him off.”
Not that the broadcaster wanted to discuss it with us when we reached out for his views last week.
“I hope you can appreciate that, at this stage, I am saying nothing. May I therefore, thank you for the invitation, but trust you understand,” he told Diary.
Jones has long-been one of the country’s most generous and gregarious private lenders – at least to those he considered friends – but has led an increasingly insular lifestyle since he was released on bail following his arrest last November, with the octogenarian rarely straying from his multimillion-dollar Circular Quay apartment in the famed “Toaster” building.
Indeed, the 84-year-old’s reclusive existence is a far cry from the days when he was often spotted socialising with close friends, including the likes of billionaire James Packer, former prime minister Tony Abbott, Today show host Karl Stefanovic, celebrity numbers man Anthony Bell, retired Test cricketers Brett Lee and Shane Watson, Olympic swimmers Ian Thorpe and Scott Miller, and football stars Kurtley Beale and Craig Wing.
Of course, Diary is not suggesting any or all of them feature in Jones’s dossier. Well, except one.
The troubled radio host famously gave Stefanovic a six-figure, interest-free loan for the deposit on his first Sydney home more than two decades ago – with the breakfast television host one of the few people to continually declare his friendship with Jones.
The revelations about the host’s financial dossier come after his solicitor Bryan Wrench this month argued that he held “grave concerns” about the search police performed on Jones’s home.
Only time will tell whether Jones’s ledger will be raised during the ensuing legal argy bargy.
ABC of tackiness
And the award for the most cringe-worthy television moment so far this year goes to … drum roll please … the ABC’s current affairs powerhouse, 7.30.
In a surprise move by a program that would have you believe it is above populist panhandling, 7.30 has stooped to shamelessly begging people to vote for it in the upcoming TV Week Logie Awards, of all things.
Respected host Sarah Ferguson began spruiking the idea and urging people to log on to the Logie Awards website and register a vote while wrapping up the program last Monday, framing it as a personal “request”.
“If you think 7.30 gives you the stories you want about things that matter to you and holds power to account in the way you want power held to account,” she told viewers, “then the thing I want you to do is vote for us at the Logies.
“I would appreciate your vote very much. I think the way to do it is going to be sitting there at the bottom of the screen – so note it down and vote for us.”
The website’s details continued to be flashed up on screen at the end of the show all week, before Ferguson gave viewers another rev up on Thursday.
“That’s the program for this evening and one more request for you – there’s only a week for you to vote for us at the Logies,” she said.
“I think the instruction is there at the bottom of the screen. I’d very much like you to do that. Thank you very much for your company.”
Now we know what you’re probably thinking: Come on, Diary, be fair. A TV Week Logie Award is just about the most prestigious honour on the planet handed out by a supermarket glossy magazine that reports on soap opera plot lines as if they’re real.
Surely dedicating precious on-air time to soliciting votes from viewers for an industry backslapping ceremony no one much cares about is actually a very reasonable and responsible use of taxpayer resources and in no way cheap or tacky at all.
But you’d be wrong.
Radio basket case
Ever wonder what the BC stands for in Nine’s Brisbane-based talkback station, 4BC?
Apparently, it’s “Basket Case” – at least according to many of the increasingly irate staff members toiling away within the station’s Cannon Hill studios.
“The place is in free-fall at the moment with zero direction,” one fed-up insider told us last week. “Everything is arse backwards in here ... it’s in absolute turmoil.”
Just how “arse backwards” could it be? Well, according to Diary’s sources, the station’s highest-paid radio star is its lowest-rating host; its drivetime program is overshadowing its prized breakfast show offering; and, worst of all, the network’s second-string Brisbane station, 4BH, which is leased out to Ace Radio, has more than doubled 4BC’s audience.
Battling brekkie host and self-proclaimed room-reader Peter Fegan is said to be among those feeling the pressure, given the network is paying him $200,000 a year even though he is struggling to connect with listeners.
The not-quite-award-winning presenter slipped to just 4.6 per cent share of the available audience in the latest ratings survey released last week – less than half of “BBQ” Bob Gallagher’s 10 per cent cut across the dial on 4BH – and is now hovering just above the fatal 4.3 per cent mark that saw his predecessors, Laurel Edwards, Gary Clare and Mark Hine, axed last September.
“Everyone knows his show isn’t working,” one 4BC staff member told us. “His mumbling and stumbling over words and lack of general everyday knowledge is shocking.
“If you tallied up the number of times he says ‘being brutally honest’ and ‘I’ve got to say’ it accounts for half his show and it’s just boring and repetitive.
“But absolutely nothing is being done about it.”
Ouch ... talk about being brutally honest!
The pain only got worse in the morning time slot, with presenter Bill McDonald – who is on $175,000 a year – attracting a 4.3 per cent share compared to 4BH’s 12.3 per cent.
But the real sticking point for many appears to be the dire performance of the outlet’s afternoon show, with 4BC’s highest-paid presenter, Sofie Formica, who pulls in $240,000 a year, attracting a meagre 4 per cent audience share – less than half of Gavin Miller’s 10 per cent on 4BH.
Worse yet, we’re told secret internal “adjusted figures” for her show’s true run time actually revealed her audience share was an abysmally low 3.2 per cent.
Gary Hargraves, the lowest-paid daytime presenter on $150,000, was the highest-rating daytime host with more than 5.4 per cent of the available audience.
“In what world is your highest-paid presenter your lowest-rating host, and lowest-rating host your highest-rating presenter?” one 4BC staff member put to Diary.
“That should tell you just about everything you need to know about the backwards way this place is being run.”
(High School) Project
If we’re looking on the bright side, there’s surely no way Ten’s troubled new current affairs offering can possibly lose any more viewers ... but then, of course, that’s largely because the only people who appear to be watching are the presenters’ mums.
The beleaguered show, ironically named 10 News+, and fronted by Seven News defectors Denham Hitchcock and Amelia Brace, has been on air for a month now after replacing axed woke nightly gibberfest The Project.
And if you haven’t seen it yet, you’re not the only one.
Although the network promised they would give the program time to establish itself and build an audience in the fiercely competitive 6pm timeslot, it turns out that the more 10 News+ is on, the more people are switching off.
Since debuting to an already modest audience of 291,000 nationally on average on June 30, the show has shed about 60 per cent of its opening night viewership, with just 117,000 tuning in last Friday.
One high-ranking television executive blamed the disastrous performance on the show’s poor production quality and news judgment, openly describing it as The (High School) Project.
As the relentless finger pointing continues inside Ten over who will ultimately carry the can for the disaster, Diary can reveal it wasn’t actually network chief Beverley McGarvey’s idea to pull the plug on its predecessor, The Project, in the first place.
We’re told that decision was made by Ten’s benevolent – yet thrifty – corporate overlords at Paramount in the US, driven by the need to cut the exorbitant cost of buying episodes of The Project from Rove McManus and Craig Campbell’s external production house, Roving Enterprises.
The fact McGarvey – and the network’s national news boss, Martin White – have been following orders will likely spare them from any fatal repercussions. Just how much longer 10 News+ is spared its fate is another story.
Battle for Brisbane
Seven and Nine are gearing up for a renewed battle for Brisbane as reporter Joel Dry returns to the fray in the River City.
The reporter will jet back into the Queensland capital on August 5 after signing on to replace Nine News’s much-loved news anchor Andrew Lofthouse following his retirement in January and co-host the city’s prime-time bulletin alongside Melissa Downes.
Until recently, Dry, who is married to Nine’s Europe correspondent Jessica Millward, had been filing ad hoc news yarns for Seven out of London, but will take on his new role at Nine’s Mount Coot-Tha studios from August 18.
We hear Nine’s Queensland news boss, Brendan Hockings, will give Dry plenty of time to adjust to life in the hot seat before Downes takes a well-earned breather, having done a stellar performance hosting the key bulletin solo for much of the year.
Dry will have his hands full adjusting, given he will also be bringing the couple’s five-year-old son, Sully, home with him, while Millward stays on in London through into the new year.
Although his appointment initially caused some rumblings in the network’s Brisbane newsroom, Hockings, who made the captain’s call to install him, insists he’s the right man for the job.
And given Hocko has lifted the news bulletin’s ratings by an incredible 20 per cent, year-on-year, since his appointment in December, who are we to argue?
Rumour is Seven have been actively war-gaming for Dry’s return since we pre-emptively broke the news he had been given the plum posting back in May – and has even considered asking local anchor Sarah Greenhalgh to return from maternity leave early after having a baby, Jack, with husband Billy Bentley, to combat Dry’s impending arrival.
However, network sources downplayed their concerns at the weekend, telling Diary: “We’re not worried about Joel.”
Dry’s return comes after Nine’s award-winning state political reporter, Tim Arvier, bid farewell after a two-decade career with a rousing knees-up at the Regatta Hotel in Toowong on Friday night before taking up a new job with the Queensland government.
“Tim’s never happier than when he’s running into studio with 30 seconds to spare, to break exclusive news he verified two minutes earlier,” Hocko told the boisterous crowd at Arvier’s send-off. “Those poor public servants have no idea what they’re in for.”
Top Marks for plan
Get out your little red books everyone and prepare to take notes because “Hollywood” Hugh Marks is about to release his manifesto for his cultural revolution at the ABC.
The public broadcaster’s newishly installed managing director has revealed he will unveil his “thoughts on future ABC strategy at an all-staff forum” with newsrooms across the country this week ... you already knew that because we told you a fortnight ago that would be happening.
According to our sources Marks’ briefing is expected to revolve around three themes: create, distribute, engage.
“Hugh really wants ... the ABC to get back to basics,” one well-placed source told Diary.
“He wants the ABC to focus on creating great content, working out the best way to distribute, forgetting about ‘wokeness’ and just concentrating on telling stories about the already diverse communities the ABC covers.
“It’s nothing radical but Hugh’s disciplined, works his execs hard and expects to get things done.”
Sounds a little radical for the ABC to us.
Surgically removed
Hell hath no fury like a tabloid newspaper scorned – just ask celebrated Sydney surgeon Munjed Al Muderis.
The world-leading osseointegration specialist reckons Nine’s mastheads have been surgically removing every positive mention of him from its pages – no matter how central he is to the story.
The orthopaedic surgeon was most recently excised from the company’s news coverage last week when Labor MP Ali France offered her heartfelt maiden speech to parliament.
There was nary a dry eye in the house when the former journalist, who unexpectedly unseated then-opposition leader Peter Dutton at the federal election in May, told the lower house about the devastating car accident that stole her leg – and almost her life – back in 2011.
“Everyone in my life remembers the day I was supposed to die,” she said.
She went on to thank the surgeons – Professor Martin Wullschleger and Dr al Muderis – for saving her life and helping her walk again.
Not that you’d know that reading Nine’s coverage.
Although the accident and her ensuing six surgeries were mentioned, the prominent surgeons were not.
Dr Al Muderis told Diary it was part of the paper’s ongoing retaliation after he had the temerity to sue 60 Minutes, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age over reports he claimed wrongly accused him of medical negligence.
Of course he’s used to it – and sent us a trove of similar stories from which any mention of him had been suppressed, including a 60 Minutes profile on France two months ago, a front-page SMH story about injured Ukrainian soldiers he was treating in February, and a 9Honey story about his patient Stephen Rodriguez.
“Independent. Always? Apparently not when it comes to me,” Professor Al Muderis told Diary.
“It is sad that their vendetta is so extreme they cannot bring themselves to report something as significant as this fairly.”
Given judgment in his defamation case is still to be handed down a year on from the 10-week trial, we don’t reckon he should hold his breath waiting for anything to change any time soon.
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