Media Diary: Q&A’s Tony Jones pens novels in China

Virginia Trioli and Ellen Fanning are among the favourites for Q&A hosting duties after Tony Jones confirmed he will depart.

Virginia Trioli, Ellen Fanning, Steve Cannane and Hamish MacDonald could replace Tony Jones as host of Q&A.

He is the man who introduced the weekly town hall-style political forum to the national consciousness. But nearly 11 years after Q&A first burst on to our TV screens, Tony Jones has confirmed to Diary the ABC’s worst kept secret: that he will reluctantly give up his role as the show’s main host before the year is out.

Jones will head to Asia with his wife, departing Four Corners host Sarah Ferguson, to accompany her in her new role as the ABC’s China bureau chief.

Tony Jones and Sarah Ferguson

“I love doing Q&A,” Jones tells Diary. “But going to China is an ­opportunity that is too good to miss.”

It will be the end of an era for Q&A, which Jones launched in May 2008 with the-then prime minister Kevin Rudd as his first guest.

The show created a tradition of political junkies tuning in and tweeting at exactly 9.35pm once a week.

Jones is still negotiating a few short stints on Q&A for 2020 and ­beyond, which ABC ­insiders say could mean up to 15 shows for him next year.

Meanwhile, as he prepares to move to China with Ferguson around October, he will cut down his roster of Q&A hosting gigs from about 40 in previous years to between 30 and 35 this year.

Jones is not hopeful of being able to get a work visa in China along with Ferguson, because of the recent experiences of the “partners of other correspondents” there.

But don’t even think of mentioning the dreaded r-word: Jones, 62, tells Diary he has “no plans” for retirement. He is currently finishing an as-yet unnamed sequel to his first novel published 18 months ago, The Twentieth Man, which he describes as a “Day of the Jackal-type thriller”, with plenty more novels planned.

He is also hopeful of doing “one-off reporting assignments for the ABC, but only outside of China”, although he stresses he is “not counting on that”.

And what about when he and Ferguson return to Australia in late 2021 or 2022?

Jones is keeping his options open, but concedes the main Q&A hosting role will be lost. “Someone will have cemented that role by then — there’s no way in my ­wildest dreams they’d be holding it open,” he concedes.

“But who knows? There are growing opportunities to pitch for documentaries here, and I’ll be writing more novels when I’m in China.”

Spotlight on Trioli

With Tony Jones off to China, the spotlight turns to who will replace him on Q&A.

The bookies’ favourite is clearly Virginia Trioli, currently co-host of ABC News Breakfast. If she gets the gig, it would trigger a separate internal search to replace her on that show.

But one minor question mark on her candidacy for Q&A is the fact she is also a frontrunner for Jon Faine’s radio show on ABC 774 in Melbourne, after Faine announced 2019 would be his last year on the show.

Co-hosts Michael Rowland and Virginia Trioli.

If Trioli is unavailable, other candidates for the prized Q&A role are Ellen Fanning (known as one of the best interrogators in the business after her gigs hosting Nine’s Sunday and guest-hosting 7.30), as well as Julia Baird and Annabel Crabb (both of whom have guest-hosted Q&A).

Former The Drum host Steve Cannane is also rated a “puncher’s chance”, while Radio ­National presenter Hamish MacDonald, who has guest-hosted Q&A, could also be considered. But will MacDonald’s other role as co-host of Ten’s The Sunday Project hurt his chances?

Dickie alive and kicking

Headlines across the country in December screamed that Richard “Dickie” Wilkins had been on the wrong end of Nine’s axe, amid the Karl Stefanovic-led carnage at the Today show.

But less than two months later, Dickie seems as busy as he has ever been in his new, more vaguely-defined role at the network.

Wilkins has emerged from the Today wreckage with the sought-after job as permanent co-host of Nine’s morning show, Today Extra, for two days a week. But last week, Dickie’s hosting shifts on the show were upped to four days, with regular host Sonia Kruger away on The Voice duties.

Richard Wilkins.

Meanwhile, Dickie also seems to be flat-chat at his former home at Today. Last week he had interviews with Kelly Rowland, Boy George, Delta Goodrem and Guy Sebastian, and a feature on Elton John, as well as his regular movie reviewing slot and his weekend radio gig on Smooth FM. And all this as he heads off to LA later this week to anchor Nine’s coverage of the Oscars. It seems the reports of Dickie’s professional death have been greatly exaggerated.

Ben’s kids come first

Things got a bit testy on TV a few days back between 2GB/Nine host Ben Fordham and Peter Gleeson, the host of Sky News’s late-night media show The Front Page.

Gleeson wanted to know if Fordham had been offered Karl Stefanovic’s role as Today host, as was widely speculated last year.

And he wasn’t ready to take no for an answer, asking Fordham the question several different ways. The exchange went as follows:

PG: Were you offered the job, and if so, why didn’t you take it?

BF: No.

PG: You weren’t offered the job?

BF: No, I wasn’t offered the job.

PG: What do you mean you weren’t offered the job?

BF: What part of “I wasn’t ­offered the job” do you not understand, Gleeso. You’re a bright bloke, you’re the host of The Front Page on Sky News. I wasn’t offered the job.

The awkward stalemate was eventually broken when Fordham revealed that he had explained to Nine bosses last year he was “not up for it”, because he needed to look after his two kids while his newsreader wife Jodie Speers read the 5am news on Channel 7.

An animated Fordham ended the on-air jousting by turning the tables, in mock exasperation, on the relentless Gleeson about the Today grilling: “So who’s going to look after the kids? Are we going to ring Uncle Gleeso to come over and look after the kids?”

Blokey Jacobs back

Still on Today, what is the real story behind the permanent ­return of veteran weather presenter Steve Jacobs?

A big part of Nine’s shock decision to chuck Karl Stefanovic off Today at the end of last year was the need to present a less blokey culture.

But as the ratings at the new ­female-friendly Today have dived as low as 177,000 viewers, blokes are now apparently back in fashion. A fortnight ago, Jacobs was welcomed back to Today with open arms.

He had vacated the Today weather presenting job by moving to Vanuatu in 2017, as part of an ultimately unsuccessful bid to save his marriage.

Jacobs joked unconvincingly on his return to the show that he was just doing the weather “for the day”.

But the truth is that he is a popular figure on Today, and ever since he returned from Vanuatu last year, he had been on Nine’s radar to return to the show in some form.

Ironically, that opportunity presented itself when the woman who took over his role in 2017, ­Natalia Cooper, went on ­maternity leave. In fact, Cooper gave birth to a baby boy on the very same day Jacobs returned to Today.

Under Australian employment laws, Cooper is entitled to resume her “pre-parental leave” job when she returns to work.

It won’t come to that. Nine has negotiated the tricky human ­resources waters by locking down Cooper in another unspecified presenting position, with more civilised hours than a 4am start, for when she resumes at Nine.

Domain event

In the week ex-Domain boss ­Antony “The Cat” Catalano was revealed as having paid a Melbourne record $30 million for a lavish seven-bedroom St Kilda penthouse, things did not appear so rosy in real estate for his successor, Jason Pellegrino.

Antony Catalano.

Diary has heard well-informed whispers around the Willoughby corridors of Nine, Domain’s 60 per cent shareholder, suggesting its CEO, Hugh Marks, is starting to keep a very close eye on the real ­estate website’s performance.

Last week Lizzie Young, Nine’s group content strategy director and one of Marks’s most trusted lieutenants, was appointed to a new role heading up the group’s commercial partnerships.

Isn’t it interesting, then, that a large part of Young’s new role takes in partnerships involving Domain.

Insiders stress that Pellegrino’s position at Domain is not currently under threat. But would it be too much of a stretch to suggest that Young might offer him a bit of help from head office, given her closeness to Marks?

Maybe even the legendary Cat could muck in, after he was mysteriously reported to be in the lobby of Nine’s Melbourne HQ two weeks back.

Any advice from Young or The Cat would surely be gratefully ­received by Pellegrino.

Since the day he came on board last August, the market value of Domain shares has slumped from $2 billion to $1.2bn.

Marks on the move

Still on Marks, he is slowly coming to terms with Nine’s much-­expanded operations around the country.

Last week, it was the turn of Nine’s Queensland operations to come under Marks’s gaze — in a visit that took in, you guessed it, Domain, as well as Nine’s Brisbane TV studios, radio station 4BC and the Brisbane Times.

Insiders swear the visit wasn’t about anything specific, like ­Domain or, say, cost-cutting. ­Instead, Marks was simply on a “getting to know you” tour, as part of a slow-moving meet-and-greet that will eventually take in all of Nine’s expanded operations around Australia, and as many staff as possible.

Marks has already visited Perth and Melbourne: “He’s planning to make it to Adelaide in the next couple of months,” a Nine insider added.

League of their own

There are some pretty gruelling jobs in Australian spinning right now: running corporate communications for the big banks readily springs to mind. But Diary reckons even embattled banking PRs might be breathing a sigh of relief they aren’t Peter “Grimmo” Grimshaw, the ­National Rugby League’s chief spinner.

The NRL has a scandal-plagued history, but hardened league veterans can’t remember a more disastrous off-season for the code than this one. Even NRL boss Todd Greenberg calls it a “train wreck”.

Diary hears Grimmo was hit with a category five media cyclone when he returned to work in ­recent days.

Cartoon: Johannes Leak.

Last week he had to spin the NRL’s decision to throw Ben Barba, the former winner of the Dally M Medal for the sport’s best player, out of the game over serious domestic violence allegations.

But that’s just the start. He also has had to deal with some serious sanctions pending against senior officials.

And now poor Grimmo’s focus shifts to a courtroom media circus, with a glut of player assault charges pending.

Top priority is a pair of serious aggravated sexual assault charges against two of the NRL’s biggest names: Jarryd Hayne (yet another ex-Dally M medallist) and State of Origin player Jack De Belin, who both face court this week.

On a bizarre note, Grimmo has also been forced to roll out his media strategies for a sex tape scandal — involving the banning of a now highly-embarrassed State of Origin star, captured in a compromising position while he continually demanded that an unnamed “friend” call him “Big Papi”. You couldn’t make it up! And other similar sex tapes are apparently threatening to come out.

All this a month before a ball is even kicked.

At this rate, Greenberg might have to padlock Grimmo inside the NRL’s Moore Park bunker, just to keep him there.

Machinegun Sales

Last year, Diary noted a slick, 60 Minutes-style promotion that popped up on the ABC, show­casing Leigh Sales landing the big celebrity interviews. It was a personality-driven tour de force: Sales kissing Paul McCartney, bantering with Margot Robbie and sharing an emotional moment with Blanche d’Alpuget.

Leigh sales

But in 2019, the ABC’s promo wizards have apparently decided that was all a bit too frivolous.

Auntie’s wizards have conjured a steelier Sales for an election year.

Gone are the embraces, laughs and tears with McCartney, Robbie and d’Alpuget.

Instead, Sales’s “Blue Steel” is unleashed this time around, with an unblinking stare — a la the late, great Richard Carleton — showcased as she poses the tough questions.

The A-list international celebrities have been ditched, replaced by Australia’s uniquely B-grade band of politicians and leaders — with Clive Palmer, Emma Husar and departed ABC chairman Justin Milne all featuring prominently.

But star of the show is undoubtedly Sales the Inquisitor, firing questions, machinegun-like, at her seemingly hapless subjects.