How Stefanovic went from Nine’s ‘heart and soul’ to persona non grata

In August 2024, Karl Stefanovic was on top of the world.

The Today show host had spent two weeks in Paris, front and centre of Nine’s broadcast of the Olympics. During the games, Stefanovic and his wife, Jasmine, had been put up in a plush Parisian apartment courtesy of Airbnb.

Upon returning to Sydney, Today marked Stefanovic’s 50th birthday with a highlights clip to toast its “legendary, iconic heart and soul”. It portrayed an image of the good-hearted everyman, who would never alienate audiences – or advertisers. So secure was his status at Nine after the Olympics’ rating success that he even skipped the industry’s night of nights, the Logie Awards, to reportedly celebrate his milestone with a birthday bash.

“One has to wonder if Karl got a nod and a wink from management [that it was acceptable to be overseas] after the ratings success of the Olympics,” a typically snarky anonymous Nine source told Woman’s Day at the time. “[He’s] pretty well set in his job at Nine for at least the next decade,” the person forecast.

Instead, less than two years later, Today’s “heart and soul” is on his way out.

The slow-motion rupture of his professional relationship with Nine this week has been months, if not years, in the making. The immediate cause was the hour-long podcast interview Stefanovic posted, and then deleted, with British anti-Islam agitator and far-right personality Tommy Robinson. The network stressed it had no involvement in Stefanovic’s independent podcast, but said that it was “taking this matter seriously” hours before deciding to part ways after a day of tense crisis meetings.

The decision dragged into Wednesday evening because Stefanovic, who is in London, had been nearly impossible to get a hold of. And as of Thursday afternoon, Nine was yet to publicly confirm the terms or timing of its top presenter’s departure. Nine is the owner of this masthead.

Two years before, Stefanovic suffered the first blow to his position at Nine when he lost a key backer. Back then, not only was Stefanovic the face of the network, but he also enjoyed a particularly close relationship with then-chief executive Mike Sneesby.

By the time Stefanovic and Nine’s stars were in Paris, Sneesby’s position was terminal. Less than a week after Nine wrapped up coverage of the Paralympics, the chief executive announced his departure.

At the time, Sneesby’s departure didn’t seem like a problem for Stefanovic. Sneesby was replaced by Nine’s former chief financial officer Matt Stanton, who has a reputation among Nine’s biggest shareholders, including funds manager Pendal Group, as being rigorously disciplined on costs.

That discipline shone through last December, nine months after Stanton was made permanent chief executive, when Stefanovic’s latest contract was negotiated. The star presenter settled for a one-year deal rumoured to be around $2 million – less than what he’d received in the past, but a reflection of a company determined to tighten its belts against the backdrop of a slumping advertising market.

As a sweetener, Stefanovic was given the green light to produce his own independent podcast. Given his public image, Nine would’ve had no reason to believe it would turn into a vehicle for conservative culture war voices.

“I’m free and independent to talk to the people that I’m curious about. It’s unscripted, unfiltered, uncensored,” Stefanovic said ahead of the launch of The Karl Stefanovic Show in January.

“I’m going to unleash the beast. Are you ready to walk on the wild side?”

In this case, that meant One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, who fronted the first episode and has appeared as a guest several times. That first episode set the tone. In the months since, Stefanovic’s podcast has featured a who’s who of the populist right. Billionaire miner Clive Palmer has made a couple of appearances, as has former Liberal National Party senator Gerard Rennick, who made his name among people concerned about vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic. The podcast has also given a mainstream platform to figures with fringe views.

Celebrity chef-turned conspiracy theorist Pete Evans has also appeared. This month, armchair historian Ben van Kerkwyk went on the podcast to talk about secret labyrinths hidden under the pyramids.

None of these figures were explicitly considered off-limits to interview. But what has increasingly frustrated Nine insiders has been the gentle approach Stefanovic has taken to his subjects.

In March, he said he was “legitimately sorry” for urging Australians to take the COVID-19 vaccine. He also apologised to Evans for calling him a “whack job”. Of particular concern to the higher-ups at Nine was a recent Instagram post in which Stefanovic suggested accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith was the victim of double standards.

“Seems to me that we are perfectly comfortable putting a target on the backs of the men and women who fought for this country while giving a free pass to the ones who turned their backs on it,” the post said.

Nine had spent millions successfully defending Roberts-Smith’s failed defamation action against the media company over articles published in this masthead regarding his conduct during the war in Afghanistan. His criminal case is ongoing, and the former soldier has denied all the allegations against him. In that context, Stefanovic’s views rankled.

And it meant he was left with little rope after this week’s interview with Robinson (whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon). Stefanovic embraced Robinson in a promotional video where he called outgoing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer a “wanker”. He praised Robinson’s “courage” and “tenacity”. At one point, Stefanovic said: “God, I love you”.

Robinson has a long rap sheet, with convictions for assault, mortgage fraud, using a false passport and contempt of court. Even British conservative luminaries such as Boris Johnson have labelled him a “far-right thug”.

The broadcaster’s political turn over the past six months has been a surprise. Friends and colleagues who have known Stefanovic socially for decades, and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the terms of their employment, had never heard him espouse explicitly Hansonite views in private. It’s also a marked departure from the views he has previously espoused on air.

In 2014, Stefanovic went viral internationally after wearing the same navy suit every day for a year to point out the double standards faced by his female co-hosts, whose every outfit was critiqued. Two years later, he labelled then-immigration minister Peter Dutton’s comments about “illiterate” refugees “un-Australian” in an earnest monologue that traversed the migrant stories of his own family and his friends’ forebears.

But with Hanson surging in the polls, and the online manosphere providing a lucrative market for media entrepreneurs, Stefanovic is rolling the dice by abandoning middle Australia for fans of a very particular ideological hue. He’s made no secret of his desire to emulate Joe Rogan, the American podcaster who is the most-streamed in the world, and who promotes sometimes fringe viewpoints. Stefanovic has even taken to calling himself Joe Bogan.

International conservatives are paying attention. The world’s first trillionaire, Elon Musk, reposted a sympathetic account of Stefanovic’s political journey and ouster to his 240 million followers. “Wow,” Musk said.

Social media data compiled for this masthead by influencer marketing platform Fabulate shows that the Instagram audience for the Karl Stefanovic show is 72 per cent more male than his traditional audience. The audience is also significantly older.

“For that shift in audience to happen so quickly is surprising. It’s directly off the back of the content he’s producing,” said Fabulate’s co-founder Nathan Powell.

The trajectory of Stefanovic’s new venture is also reflected in the kind of advertisers that are circling. Currently, bushwear brand Ringers Western is a primary sponsor.

Sarah Keith, managing director of Involved Media, said that advertisers reflecting the “man cave” or “bro culture” – including apparel, cryptocurrency, wagering, energy drinks, would make or break Stefanovic’s future success.

Stefanovic’s new audience is a marked departure from the viewers who made him a star. Charming and telegenic, he has always been a hit among female viewers. He lost some of that lustre following a very public divorce in 2017, and was dumped by Nine for the first time a year later after a leaked video revealed Stefanovic and his brother Peter Stefanovic denigrated Today co-host Georgie Gardner in an Uber.

By 2020, Stefanovic was brought back after Today’s ratings nosedived. He helped them recover, but never durably beat Seven’s rival program Sunrise. For years, the bloke famous for a peak male feminist stunt was a ratings winner for the network. But this week, Stefanovic gave it all up, deciding that his future was male.

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