Karl Stefanovic continues to host the Today show in the morning while carving out a new identity as an “anti-woke” podcaster on YouTube. But being the headliner at a One Nation fundraiser appears to be a step too far to the right for Nine’s highest-paid journalist.
One Nation excitedly told supporters in an email: “To launch the campaign, Pauline Hanson will appear live at our rally in a special podcast conversation with Karl Stefanovic and Barnaby Joyce, discussing the future of regional Australia, immigration, cost-of-living pressures and what needs to change in Canberra.”
But after we asked Nine and One Nation questions, Hanson sent a swift clarification, saying Stefanovic was recording a podcast after the fundraiser, but “the two events are not connected … You are welcome to stay and be part of the audience for the live recording”, the party said.
Stefanovic’s producer, Keshnee Kemp, told Beast: “He’s not appearing nor does he have anything to do with the fundraising event. We’re simply filming an episode for The Karl Stefanovic Show with Barnaby and Pauline after the event wraps. I believe One Nation has sent a redaction.” It was more of a retraction than a redaction, but we get it.
This week Stefanovic came out as an opponent of mandatory vaccinations and lockdowns.
The YouTuber, who now has more than 57,000 subscribers, made the comments during an interview with the former Liberal senator and prominent vaccine sceptic, Gerard Rennick. In 2021 Stefanovic and his then Today co-host, Ally Langdon, got Covid shots on air, fronting Nine’s #GetVaccinated campaign, and he now regrets it.
Sign up to get Guardian Australia’s weekly media diary as a free newsletter“The one thing [viewers] say about me is that I supported the Covid jab, and I have regrets from that time, and I am definitely sorry for the role I played in not questioning the science, in not questioning more the government mandates, and I feel like I isolated people because of that,” he said.
For the record, the Australian Medical Association told us: “Vaccines go through rigorous testing and approval processes and the reality is that vaccination has saved more lives than any other medical intervention in history.”
The 51-year-old unveiled a new sponsor this week: an “official wagering partner just in time for the start of the NRL season”, that we won’t name.
No sooner had Kyle Sandilands’ breakfast show been cancelled than speculation turned to whether the radio shock jock could join Stefanovic on YouTube. The two already bonded over a podcast interview last month.
Kyle and Jackie woes
The media can’t get enough of the Kyle and Jackie O story, which started as a slow burn two weeks ago when Sandilands mocked his co-host on air for her interest in astrology and exploded on Tuesday when the leading breakfast radio show was taken off air.
The parent company of broadcaster Kiis, the Australian Radio Network, accused Sandilands of “serious misconduct” and Henderson said she could no longer work with him, bringing an end to a 10-year deal for which the duo were to earn $200m between them. This story is far from over and is likely to spark lawsuits at 10 paces.
The abrupt ending of the most lucrative and successful partnership in radio, if not media more generally, generated more than 6,000 stories across TV, radio, print and online in the 24 hours after the announcement, according to media monitoring company Streem. Each item is counted separately, so there may be duplication.
Desperate for new angles after the release of the stunning statement to the ASX, the Daily Telegraph dispatched reporters to stake out Henderson and Sandilands’ “prospective [sic] eastern suburbs mansions” the next day.
“Media lined the street outside her luxurious house, integrating with onlookers from run-clubs and commuters along Clovelly Beach,” the Tele breathlessly reported.
The riveting details uncovered from the grassy knolls outside the mansions included: Sandilands’ wife turning away the “roof gutters who had arrived to do booked work”; “an unknown woman moving her car from the street to the driveway” and the same woman “taking a child from Sandilands’ home and leaving the house”.
But our favourite revelation, accompanied by pap shots of Henderson’s cute pooch, was that “the star’s cavoodle was picked up and walked by her regular dog walker in the morning”.
We were also informed that “A black BMW arrived and parked inside the property at about 11am”, undoubtedly a crucial detail.
Streem told us the Kyle and Jackie O story had generated 11,414 stories across all media from 20 February until Thursday 5 March.
For transparency, our readers loved the story too – Guardian Australia’s two stories on Kyle and Jackie O were among the best read on the site.
Naturally, for a Sydney tabloid, the Daily Tele produced the most copy: 20 print articles over the fortnight and 70 online pieces.
But the Sydney Morning Herald has really embraced the story, publishing 10 print articles and a plethora of hot takes from senior writers, including three Michaels: Idato, Lallo, and the North American correspondent Koziol.
Koziol found time between filing on the US declaring war to come out as a “long-standing listener and fan” of Kyle and Jackie O, conceding there were controversies … but the show was an “exemplar of the medium”. Another senior writer, Jacqueline Maley, did not agree, accusing Jackie of enabling the misogyny of Sandilands.
The Courier-Mail couldn’t decide what position to take on the bust-up, running opposing pieces which variously argued that the presenters were the best radio practitioners in the country and “Good riddance, Brisbane didn’t want you two anyway”. Next to each other on the website, and by the same writer.
News ticker standoff
Although the ABC dropped the original name “ABC News 24” in 2017 for ABC News Channel, the public broadcaster still refers to the rolling news platform as “ABC News 24” in some contexts, we were surprised to learn a the weekend.
This matters now because, forced to rebrand, Sky News Australia chose the name News24.
Its parent company, the Australian News Channel, belatedly applied to IP Australia for the trademark “News24”, which many older viewers of Aunty still believe is the name of the ABC’s breaking news channel. Was that familiarity part of Sky’s strategy?
According to IP, the ABC retains the name until 2030. The broadcaster told Weekly Beast it was considering its options in terms of trademarks: “We are obviously concerned about confusion caused by Sky’s new branding given ABC News Channel has also used the “ABC News 24” brand since it launched in 2010.”
But, why, we wondered, did the ABC have a banner across the screen during Mardi Gras telling viewers to turn to ABC News 24 for breaking news?
“To alert audiences to major live breaking news coverage we at times run a crawl during programming on the ABC main channel pointing audiences to ‘ABC News 24’ and ‘ABC News channel 24’,” a spokesperson said.
“This is because ABC News Channel is located on channel 24 on broadcast free-to-air TV. During Saturday night’s TV Mardi Gras broadcast on ABC TV we were pointing audiences to the live rolling coverage of Iran on the News channel. In January we ran a crawl on ABC TV in Victoria pointing audiences to our live bushfire coverage.”
