Brenton Ragless: the anti-Karl who could replace Stefanovic on Nine’s Today show

Fill-in Brenton Ragless is being tipped as a permanent replacement for Karl Stefanovic.

Brenton Ragless is tipped for big things. Picture: John Feder.

For gossip magazine and clickbait aficionados, there has only been one game in town for many weeks: the endless stream of headlines and speculation about an absent breakfast television host, his glamorous bride and their three-day Mexican wedding.

But while the Karl Stefanovic/Jasmine Yarbrough nuptials finally happened yesterday (after endless weeks of breathless puff pieces about everything from Yarbrough’s dress to Bundaberg rum bars at the wedding), a more significant related story is quietly unfolding.

Stefanovic’s on-screen absence has given viewers a quiet glimpse into the long-term future of Australian breakfast TV presenting.

That future is Brenton Ragless — an unassuming, 42-year-old newsreader, and a former tour bus operator who has had little exposure outside Adelaide.

Brenton Ragless on hosting duties for Today.

Since last week, Ragless, a former volunteer firefighter who started out on community radio, has been occupying Stefanovic’s vacant seat at the Today show as part of a three-week pre-Christmas stint. Ragless is seen as the frontrunner to replace Stefanovic if Today’s fortunes do not improve in 2019. The Adelaide newsreader is widely perceived at Nine as the very antithesis of the classic, Stefanovic-style network celebrity from Central Casting.

Insiders say Nine is increasingly adopting a “no dickheads” policy for its senior on-air talent. And Ragless is just what a publicity-weary Nine could be looking for in the crucial breakfast slot, which most media-watchers believe is the key to setting up its entire ratings week, particularly given the persistent focus on Stefanovic’s future amid PR pratfalls and flagging ratings.

The absence of Stefanovic and most of the Today team for the wedding has given Nine’s top brass the excuse they need to take a long, hard look at Ragless in the Today chair before Christmas.

But in a lengthy interview with The Australian, Ragless shoots down any suggestion he is angling for Stefanovic’s role, or indeed anyone else’s, at the network.

“I’m not climbing some corporate ladder to be the next big presenter,” he says. “I’m just trying to be the best person in any role that I can be.”

Karl Stefanovic and siblings at his wedding.

No one who knows Ragless, a man with a reputation at the network for “authenticity” and “genuineness”, would have any doubts about the sincerity of his comments about having no ambition for the key hosting role.

However, other forces are at play at Nine, and Ragless may be on the way up that corporate ladder whether he likes it or not.

In our interview, Ragless comes across as the ultimate anti-celebrity TV presenter. But at a time when Nine executives are weary of Stefanovic’s celebrity antics, that is a significant plus.

You get the sense Ragless has changed little since he was a tour bus guide as a young man in the early 1990s for day trips out of Adelaide to venues including the Barossa Valley, living off his $220-a-week income while doing two shifts a week at the local community radio station 1079 Life. (He also made $150 a pop for frequent Saturday night wedding MC gigs.)

“I owe my whole heritage to growing up in the community,” he says. “My best friends are people who know me from before my time in TV. It is those relationships that keep you grounded and connected to the community.”

Ever since his tour bus days, Ragless — who started out as Nine’s Adelaide weatherman in 2008 before graduating to newsreading in 2013 — says he has always treated mass audiences the same as small ones. “Whether it’s driving a bus or doing the Today show, the delivery doesn’t change,” he says. “It’s not that different, and it’s all just a platform. Numbers in the audience aren’t important to me. I get just as much satisfaction from sitting down with two or three people, or one-on-one, as I do hosting events or TV shows. Whether it’s a TV or radio show, a live event, or a group of tourists, it uses the same skill set.”

Ragless says he is enjoying the change from newsreading to the more flexible Today show environment. “It is a bit more light and shade than the news, and it allows a bit more of the old tour guide Brenton Ragless to come out,” he says. “I love what I do in Adelaide with the news, but it’s nice to come and work with a different format. It’s an exposure to a world I’ve never experienced in Adelaide. There are 30 people behind the scenes on Today, compared with a handful in Adelaide on the news. It helps me as a presenter. The opportunities to do live, unscripted TV are rare.”

If Ragless continues on his current trajectory, those opportunities could expand. There is urgency at the network’s highest levels to change the fortunes of one of its most important network brands, particularly after Today lost yet another ratings year in 2018 to its Seven rival Sunrise.

On Wednesday, in Ragless’s first week of hosting duties, Nine quietly announced that Today had parted company with its executive producer, Mark Calvert.

The timing of Calvert’s departure was lost on no one at Nine. It showed the network was thinking closely about Today, just two days before its merger with Fairfax became official.

While Calvert has faced some well chronicled issues at Today this year, some at Nine also interpreted his departure as a clear shot across the bows of the tenure of Stefanovic himself. The common wisdom goes that the ratings for the first two months of the 2019 season could now well determine whether Stefanovic stays long term or departs as Today host.

There is an ambiguity in the attitudes towards Stefanovic at Nine. While there is sympathy with the attention he has attracted from gossip mags and paparazzi in the wake of his marriage breakdown with Cassandra Thorburn in 2016, there is equally a belief that Stefanovic has hardly helped himself since by feeding the gossip mags with self-inflicted PR wounds, most notably the “Ubergate” scandal.

The struggling ratings that have followed have been yet another factor trying the patience of Nine and the broader audience with Stefanovic. As one insider puts it: “He’s one flag up, one flag down with the audience. Some men still think he’s a good bloke, but his stocks have fallen with women amid all of the headlines.”

The real perception problem for Stefanovic, rightly or wrongly, is that his jetsetting life has made him appear totally unrelatable to his Today show audience.

Meanwhile, Ragless’s down-to-earth attitude makes him a study in contrast to the man he is warming the Today chair for.

While Stefanovic has attracted headlines for jetsetting holidays on yachts with James Packer and glamorous international celebrities, Ragless prefers catch-ups with local firefighters, after his long history with South Australia’s Country Fire Service.

The contrasts don’t end there. Stefanovic has built mansions on Sydney Harbour; Ragless has lived in the same modest suburb of Blackwood in the Adelaide foothills his entire life. While Stefanovic and Yarbrough are photo­graphed at big events on the social calendar, Ragless prefers quiet nights at home with his young family.

“I expect to turn 50, and still not know what I’m going to do for the rest of my life,” Ragless says.

“I could end up as a tour guide, or with the Country Fire Service, or something entirely new. I’ll go wherever my skill sets are best used.”

But what if Nine offered him a national presenting role? “It would have to sit with what I do for my family from a lifestyle perspective,” Ragless says carefully. “If it honoured the history I had in South Australia, and if it was fitting for the family and right for them, we would certainly consider it. But we’re not chasing it.”