Media Diary: Gyngell cans talk of Today boning

NINE chief executive David Gyngell has pulled his Today Show team into line, declaring there would be no changes to the on-air line-up.

NINE chief executive David Gyngell yesterday pulled his Today Show team into line, declaring there would be no changes to the on-air line-up.

Today talent Lisa Wilkinson, Georgie Gardner and Karl Stefanovic had begun to panic about getting axed.

The panic was such that sports presenter Ben Fordham boned himself, last month telling Diary he would quit to join 60 Minutes.

Rumours continued that Gyngell would further change the line-up later this year, following Sam ­Armytage’s successful replacement of Mel Doyle at Sunrise.

But Gyngell yesterday put an end to the drama, telling Diary: “There are zero changes at Today. There won’t be for years.”

Gyngell also denied host Stefanovic was in the firing line. “It’s just Karl mucking around,” he said, referring to an interview Stefanovic gave saying executives were discussing axing him.

Gyngell is very nervous about making on-air changes after the trauma of the Jessica Rowe boning years ago. But the current hosts at Today have failed to beat Sunrise since they’ve been on air.

Stefanovic backs Today

IN a separate interview with Diary yesterday, Stefanovic says a media executive would have to be “an idiot” to change the Today line-up and claimed the on-air team was finally getting ­momentum.

Addressing speculation his brother, London correspondent Pete Stefanovic, might replace him as host, Stefanovic said Pete needed to “harden the hell up” before making the move to breakfast TV. “As much as I would love Pete to come into the firm, I reckon he needs a couple more years of hardening up,’’ he said.

On Fitzy and Wippa last week, Stefanovic was asked about the leaked email obtained by The Australian that revealed Adam Boland was planning to axe Sunrise host David Koch in November 2011.

Stefanovic said he knew executives were planning to axe him.

His comments took off, but Stefanovic said Gyngell did not call him.

“It’s only when I’m in really massive trouble, when I’ve really made a massive cock of myself, will he call me,’’ he said.

He said his comments were “100 per cent tongue in cheek” and he was simply acknowledging that there needed to be a discussion about the next generation of hosts.

“Obviously we had issues and problems last year, but now we’re stronger than ever,’’ Stefanovic said.

“There was an article talking about possible changes and that is absolutely rubbish. What executive would change the formula when it’s winning? We’ve won the east coast and that’s 75 per cent of your ad market right there.

“Our momentum is building back again. Hello? You’d have to be an idiot to change things.”

Asked about his relationship with co-host Lisa Wilkinson, and whether she annoys him, Stefanovic said: “I reckon there is a safe answer to that question. On the scale of one to 10, I give her the shits more than she gives me. It’s remarkable we’ve been able to stay together for this long and when you’re on to a good thing, I think stick to it.”

Stefanovic is enjoying Today more than ever and, as long as he can get his fix of 60 Minutes, he is a “happy ­camper”.

Fordham’s 60 Mins debut

TODAY sports host Ben Fordham has already started work on a story for 60 Minutes.

It concerns his godson Rory William’s battle with abdominal cancer.

Rory is the 11-year-old old son of A Current Affair executive producer Grant “Grunter” Williams.

It’s been an extremely tough year for the family, as conventional radiation and chemotherapy offered in hospital were not an option for Rory’s rare and aggressive tumour.

Williams took three months off work as his son underwent experimental targeted therapy at home. “In the words of Rory’s oncologist, he started with a watermelon and now he has a plum,’’ Williams said of the size of the tumour.

“Everyone is toughing it out but it’s going to be a long road for us.”

While he is still battling the cancer, Rory will this weekend play in his Manly under 12’s first grade rugby union and rugby league sides. Good on him.

Nine ties up with AFR

NINE and Fairfax are poised to do a deal, it seems, with Australian Financial Review editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury helping Fairfax Media chairman Roger Corbett hoist the for sale sign over the media company.

In a signal the two ­organisations could merge, Stutch, in his weekly email to subscribers on Friday, wrote: “As digital competition fragments the advertising dollars that support newspapers, radio and TV, traditional media companies are under pressure to consolidate.

“First, they need Malcolm Turnbull to relax the media ownership laws. That would allow News to merge with Ten. And it may lead to Fairfax Media teaming up with the Nine Network. That would produce two consolidated traditional media houses. And that’s why Kerry Stokes at Seven is seeking to throw a spanner into Turnbull’s plans for ownership regulation.”

Gyngell has ruled out a tilt at Fairfax while it remains a publisher of printed newspapers, but he told Media recently that he would be more interested in the company when it becomes digital only.

Observers believe this scenario could be quite close as Fairfax edges nearer towards closing Monday-to-Friday print editions of its major mastheads. This comes after extensive coverage in the AFR about Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood that some have taken to imply a valedictory amid persistent speculation about his tenure at the company.

Chessell’s cheese and wine on Nine

OF course, the Nine/Fairfax nexus is best exemplified by Financial Review Sunday. Perhaps then it’s only fitting that Gyngell and the investment bank behind the TV network’s float on the stockmarket will host leaving drinks for Fairfax business editor James Chessell. Two years ago, Chessell revealed something of a glass jaw with an epic hissy fit when Diary described him as Nine’s unofficial spinner. “David Gyngell and Matthew Grounds would like to invite you to informal drinks and canapes to bid farewell to James Chessell of the AFR as he relocates to London shortly to establish and run the London bureau of the Australian Financial Review,” the email invite says.

An investment banker and a CEO hosting your farewell: so much for solidarity with your colleagues.

He stole my thunder

LACHLAN Murdoch managed to totally upstage the entire TV industry on Wednesday night at Free TV’s cocktail function to celebrate the ­future of digital television.

Minutes after Free TV chairman Harold Mitchell took to the stage, phones began bleeping with emails and texts about his new positions at News Corp (publisher of The Australian) and 21st Century Fox.

People were only “half-listening” to the speeches, as ABC managing director Mark Scott noted.

The news meant Mitchell did not get the coverage he was anticipating for his event, as journalists bolted for the nearest laptop to file stories on Murdoch.

Yesterday, Mitchell said the timing of the news was “annoying” but his frustration could not match the antipathy Free TV CEO Julie Flynn showed towards journalists who turned up a dinner held at Canberra restaurant Ottoman after the event.

Some of the journalists who ­arrived at the event showed up at ­Ottoman having been told by some of the executives that they were welcome to join in, but upon arrival Flynn barked at them to leave while wagging her finger in their faces. Nice. Ottoman was the place to be on Wednesday night though. In the private dining room was T ony Abbott, and next door Virgin boss John Borghetti hosted 70 Liberal MPs.

Credlin sighting

ACROSS Canberra in Manuka, the hip bar Public was packed for the last sitting week drinks before the federal budget.

Journalists and politicians were all very excited by a rare appearance of the PM’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin. One of the most powerful women in the country, Credlin rarely ventures out, but The Sydney Morning Herald’s political correspondent Peter Hartcher enticed her to the pub. Labor and Liberal politicians alike clambered to talk to the woman some senior MPs refer to as “her royal highness”.

Meet the Press goes

TEN Network and News Corporation’s collaboration show, Meet the Press, is unlikely to return this year.

It has been replaced by Andrew Bolt’s political program, The Bolt Report, which is doing well in its new hour-long format.

A spokesman said Meet the Press was in “hiatus” but Diary understands the show will not return.