It’s hardly collusion but Nine resident blabbermouth Karl Stefanovic could be in hot water with management again after high profile pal Kyle Sandilands claimed Stefanovic told the shock jock that Nine was in strife over revenue.
Sandilands told a room full of advertising heavyweights and investment analysts at radio company ARN’s 2026 Upfronts showcase on Wednesday that Nine’s Today show host had informed him the departure of former Nine sales boss Michael “Stevo” Stephenson, who moved to ARN, had prompted an exodus of ad clients from Nine.
Stephenson moved to ARN, owner of KIIS FM, at the start of the year after being overlooked for the CEO job at Nine.
That job went instead to Matt Stanton.
It now looks to be game on for Stanton and Stephenson, the recently appointed CEO of ARN replacing outgoing boss Ciaran Davis.
According to marketing and media industry website Mumbrella, Sandilands stood up and addressed a 1000-strong audience at The Star casino on Wednesday night telling them: “Stefanovic said “We’re f***ed over here bro, without Stevo. Stevo’s taken all the f***ing clients to radio.”
The following day, on Thursday, Nine’s shares had dropped three cents to $1.15 – down from $1.18 the previous day and well down on Nine’s September high of $1.76.
It should be said that Nine’s shares have been going steadily backwards since August after Stanton announced Nine shareholders would be paid a special dividend after the sale of real estate site Domain to US conglomerate CoStar, an announcement that briefly lifted Nine shares.
This column put a series of questions to Nine on Thursday night asking if Nine has spoken to Stefanovic about his alleged comments to his pal Sandilands.
We also asked for confirmation Stefanovic had made the remark to fellow media problem child, Sandilands.
Those questions – along with another asking if Nine has been bleeding clients and revenue since Stephenson walked – remained unanswered, and unresponded to, at publication time.
Nine denied the claims.
While Sandilands may not be the most credible source of information, Stefanovic has form for being busted shooting off his mouth about the internal goings-on at Nine.
In 2018 he made headlines when his brother Peter, then also employed at Nine as a reporter and married to fellow Nine presenter Sylvia Jeffreys, called him on a speakerphone from an Uber car and spent 45 mins criticising colleagues including Georgie Gardner and Richard Wilkins and Nine bosses.
Months later Stefanovic addressed the scandal and accepted blame for his gaffe during a radio interview with – you’ll never guess who – Sandilands.
“Channel Nine weren’t happy, and upstairs weren’t happy … Whatever comes out of my mouth, I’m responsible for, and if that brings the company into disrepute or whatever, that’s on me. I accept full responsibility,” Stefanovic told the Kyle & Jackie O show.
He tellingly added that he’d called the radio shock jock, who he said was like a “mentor”, after the debacle “for sound advice”.
“I said, ‘Mate, this is a bad place I’m in now … and there’s a lot of other stuff going on’. And (Kyle) said to me, ‘Mate, I don’t think it’s a big deal, you’ve gotta say sorry, blah blah blah … But when you’re losing advertisers, that’s when you’ve got to worry!”
What prophetic words they may have turned out to be.
COMIC CON ORGANISERS ISSUING APOLOGY TO FANS OVER KYLE
Kyle Sandilands was having a bad week before he took the stage at The Star to spruik ARN’s Upfronts on Wednesday evening.
The day prior a Facebook page promoting an appearance by Sandilands at an upcoming Supernova Comic Con event in Brisbane was overrun with negative comments from critics slamming Sandilands who has a cameo in the film Zombie Plane which also stars Sophie Monk.
It forced the hand of curators who first had to step in and turn off damning comments on the page. They later posted a lengthy apology to fans.
“We apologise for any confusion surrounding our upcoming Brisbane event,” the event organisers stated.
“Kyle Sandilands is scheduled to attend exclusively as part of the Zombie Plane cast and creative team, participating in the group panel hosted by Radioactive Pictures. He has never been announced or contracted to appear as a Supa-Star guest …
“We recognise that Kyle Sandilands can be a polarising media personality and respect that everyone will have their own response to this announcement. We fully understand if some fans choose not to attend Brisbane’s cast and crew Q&A. We also hope that this will not detract from your support of the talented cast and crew of Zombie Plane … and that you’ll accept our apology for bumbling Mr Sandilands’ promotion and our delayed response.”
By Thursday the site was offline citing “maintenance”.
Sandilands’ appearance at the event looks and smells suspiciously like an ARN marketing strategy designed to build grassroots level support for Sandilands in Brisbane, his hometown.
The booking comes after Sandilands and his radio show co-host Jackie “O” Henderson bore the brunt of claims their radio program might have fared better in Melbourne last year had the duo made more appearances in the southern capital in the lead-up to the 2024 program launch.
The duo’s show is expected to next be networked into Brisbane, something seemingly confirmed last week when ARN cancelled its Brisbane breakfast show with Robin & Kip with Corey Oates, clearing the slot.
The question now is when?
For the moment the company has bought itself some time by recruiting Craig “Lowie” Low as KIIS97.3’s Brisbane breakfast show host in 2026.
Pundits claim Lowie, who was in the Austereo/2DAY FM stable with Sandilands in 2005/2006 as host of the nightly Lowie’s Hot30, has been given Sandilands’ stamp of approval.
Looking at Lowie’s radio rap sheet, the two men do seem to share a love of ribald erotic banter.
Lowie was stood down by 2DAY in 2006 after his on-air conversation with a porn star resulted in a breach of the broadcasting code.
Sounds like Sandilands and Lowie are a match made in Australian broadcasting watchdog heaven.
HISTORY CATCHES UP WITH ANT
Ant Middleton hosted three seasons of Channel 7’s SAS Australia and one of Million Dollar Island before the broadcaster cut him loose on the dancefloor of Dancing with the Stars last year.
So having invested so much money and airtime in the former British army sniper and TV brute, what prompted 7 to quietly pull the pin on Middleton’s hosting career in 2024? And with a new SAS series in the works?
The broadcaster has remained silent on the subject and wouldn’t comment when pressed during the week but it seems to be unrelated to Middleton’s getting the boot from Ten’s Amazing Race for a mysterious “breach”.
This writer has previously catalogued Middleton’s various TV production issues.
These include being dropped by a British broadcaster for “personal conduct”, reports Middleton allegedly made “lewd and suggestive comments” to women who worked on the UK version of SAS: Who Dares Wins, and his denial, as reported by British media, he’d propositioned a contestant on the show.
Well, we think finally we’ve gotten to the bottom of Seven’s decision not to renew Middleton for next year’s SAS series, Australia versus England.
Turns out co-producers of the series are Minnow Films and Britain’s Channel 4, the same outfit that cut ties with Middleton in 2021.
GOLDEN BACHELOR SHEDS AGAIN
After four successive ratings declines in a row for Nine’s The Golden Bachelor, Nine may be rethinking any permanent plans it had to parachute Samantha Armytage into the Today show.
This week the program managed to attract an audience of 643,000 viewers nationally for episode three on Monday night and 608,000 on Tuesday.
Those results are well down, by 141,000, on the figures recorded in week one when episode one attracted 749,000 viewers.
The program recorded 700,000 for episode two.
Nine seems committed to burning through the series at a rate of two eps a week and next week the program is expected to move to a new night, on Sundays, replacing The Block.
The program will go head to head with the grand final of Seven’s The Voice on the night, this coming Sunday, a challenge for any program let alone this one.
