Amid news of the $10 million contract offered to veteran radio broadcaster Ray Hadley, details of the pay packets of Nine’s other leading stars have also been revealed.
The hefty deal for 2GB host Hadley was revealed on Friday and will take the Sydney shock jock to the end of 2026.
Averaged out, it suggests Hadley is pocketing about $3.5 million a year for his top-rating morning radio show. He will also keep calling rugby league at this year’s and be part of the broadcast team for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
The deal makes Hadley easily Nine’s highest-paid on-air talent. Despite that, he’s reportedly taken a pay cut – The Australian reports that Hadley has been getting $4 million a year on his current deal, which expires in the middle of next year.
The paper’s Media Diary also revealed on Monday how much many of the network’s other famous TV faces and radio voices take home each year.
While keen to point out that Nine “famously keeps close to its chest what it pays its top talent”, the paper said it had the word from senior insiders that the network’s next highest-paid on-air presenter is Hamish Blake. According to the sources, Blake gets about $2 million a year to host TV favourite Lego Masters.
After him comes a group of the network’s best-known talent – including Today show host Karl Stefanovic, Allison Langdon (A Current Affair), Hadley’s 2GB stablemate Ben Fordham and Scott Cam (frontman for renovation juggernaut The Block). Each is reportedly on about $1.5 million annually.
In the next cohort, pocketing somewhere between $1 million-$1.2 million, are 60 Minutes presenter and Under Investigation host Liz Hayes, Andy Lee (host of The Hundred), Melbourne morning radio host Neil Mitchell), and his 3AW breakfast stablemate Ross Stevenson.
A tier below, taking in the order of $900,000- $1 million a year, is Nine’s 6pm Sydney newsreader Peter Overton.
Rounding out the pay packets published on Monday are Overton’s Melbourne equivalent, Peter Hitchener, Stefanovic’s Today show co-host Sarah Abo and Sophie Monk (host of Love Island and panellist on The Hundred). Each is paid about $800,000 annually.
TV networks famously don’t disclose what their talent is paid, though details sometime leak when stars change networks.
The most recent case was TV vet Chris Brown, who departed Network Ten at the end of the most recent I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!. He will shift to rival Seven in July – for a rumoured $1 million a year.
Brown’s projects for Seven are yet to be confirmed. There have been recent reports, however, that he will host a reboot of 1990s “male beauty quest” Man O Man as well as a renovation show intended to rival Nine’s The Block.
