Daniel James

Karl Stefanovic wasn't always an anti-woke crusader.

When I say ignorant, I truly meant... Karl Stefanovic has spent decades as one of the most recognisable faces on Australian television.

Now, that multi-million dollar career at Nine appears to be over, after Stefan Novik published an interview with Tommy Robertson, a British far-right activist with a long criminal history, who has built a large following based on hate-driven rhetoric towards Muslims, immigrants, the changing face of Britain, and on the claim he's being silenced by the establishment.

But the fallout from the podcast, including the split with Nine, may have worked in Stefanovic's favour as he tries to forge a new career in outrage podcasting.

I'm Daniel James and you're listening to 7am.

Today, Crikey's media reporter, Danielle Saeed, on Karl Stefanovic, the interview that ended his time at nine and the audience he may have been chasing all along.

It's Friday, June 26th.

Dunny, before we get to the details of how all this unfolded, let's start with where we're at.

It looks like Carl and Channel 9 are set to part ways.

What do we know?

So what we do know at the moment is that Carl Stefanovic, we don't know the details of the contract, but it appears that he has been either released from his contract or sacked.

All we know is that that contract was due to expire in December, and it's been rumoured for quite a while now that the Carl Stefanovic show, the independent podcast, uh,

has been increasingly extreme increasingly you know involving fringe far-right actors and part of the motivation for that it has been reported is because carl wants out of that contract

Okay, so let's go to the podcast in question.

Carl had a guest on, a controversial far-right activist from the UK named Stephen Christopher Yaxley Lennon, better known as Tommy Robertson.

What can you tell us about him and why platforming him is so problematic?

So Tommy Robinson has been the face of the far-right anti-Islam movement in the UK for the best part of the last 15 years.

He's, you know, this anti-migration activist.

He was a paid-up member of the British National Party.

He was a paid-up fascist before that.