The '24-carat f*ckwit' who became Nine's golden boy
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What happened when Karl Stefanovic left Nine after two decades?
After two decades at Nine, its poster boy, Carl Stefanovic, has left the building. And for the first time, people who worked with him are speaking out.
I spoke to about 20 different people who had known and worked with Carl over 26 years.
Journalist Tina Quinn has been asking questions about Stefanovic's rise at the network and what really prompted his podcast Pivot.
I was really trying to work out, I guess, how it had gotten to this. You know, what exactly had happened to this man that had once called Laurie Oakes his great hero? How had it come to this?
And what she found was a surprising number of people willing to be frank about their views on working with him.
As I continued to go on, it felt like roadblocks of people that weren't really at first wanting to talk but then completely opened up to me and then by the end, yeah, it was just this incredible snowball effect.
I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to 7am. Today, host of Fourth Estate on 2SCR and Crikey contributor Tina Quinn on Karl Stefanovic's rise, what his former colleagues really think and what his future outside the network will look like.
Who did reporter Tina Quinn talk to about Stefanovic’s behind‑the‑scenes reputation?
It's Monday, July 20th. So, Tina, to begin with, in your conversations with all of these insiders at Nine, what impression were you left with of Karl Stefanovic's place at the network before his exit? How much sway did he have and how was he seen?
Well, Karl Stefanovic... was the Today Show and was nine. That's how many people described him to me. The last thing that guests or visitors would see as they entered the soundstage of the Today Show at North Sydney was this large imposing portrait of Carl, which I thought was really interesting. It's of Carl. He's walking, he's sort of in silhouette and he's walking onto the soundstage almost like walking into his domain, his kingdom. He'd been with the program for 21 years and had outlived all eight of his female co-hosts. He was someone that was seen as almost untouchable. It didn't matter how many scandals there had been. how many controversies the network continued to back him, no matter what. And I think people, they're incredibly shocked that that era has come to an end.
He was described as the network's golden boy.
And before he kind of became the Carl Stefanovic of the Today Show, this sort of big protected figure at nine, what did people tell you about what he was like as a young reporter? Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that was quite interesting in itself because, you know, I spoke to his first newsroom director at Nine in Brisbane. This is a guy named Lee Anderson. He said he was one of the most talented reporters I'd ever come across, you know, very charismatic, but I also spoke to other producers, more junior in that newsroom, who were less than glowing, who said that he was quite lazy. That was a word that consistently came up across a lot of my reporting. He was very good at getting other people to do things for him. He arrived when he liked, knowing that as, quote, some lackey producer would have written his work for him. But he was very good, even back then, at sucking up to the right people, the execs.
Although I thought it was really interesting. There was one particular news and current affairs director who was visiting Brisbane and there was an after work drinks. You know, he said, I just heard this voice behind me just saying, really just talking himself up to the point of tedium. And I just, you know, after about five minutes of listening to his dissertation on why he was so wonderful and excellent, I sort of turned around to Lee Anderson, the news director, and said, who the hell's this bloke? And Lee said, oh, this is our new boy Wonder. And that's when he said, well, he might be your boy Wonder, but he's a 24-karat fuckwit. So, you know, there were people even back then that were less than impressed with
So, Carl, his success becomes very entwined with the Today Show, and that is despite a number of scandals that might have affected the career of a different presenter. Things like when he turned up seeming to still be drunk after the Logies.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What happened when Karl Stefanovic left Nine after two decades?
0:02–1:22
2
Who did reporter Tina Quinn talk to about Stefanovic’s behind‑the‑scenes reputation?
1:22–9:17
3
How was Karl Stefanovic described at the peak of his Today show career?
9:17–14:55
4
What were early impressions of Stefanovic as a young reporter?
14:55–16:02
Speakers
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