What's New
BY Sarah Patterson July 8, 2026
What's New June 24, 2026
Karl Stefanovic reportedly sacked by Nine
Tomorrow’s latest episode of ARN’s The Long Weekend with Karl Stefanovic and Eddie McGuire is shaping up as a particularly interesting one, with Nine Entertainment’s Sydney Morning Herald (subscription required) reporting Stefanovic and Nine are negotiating details of an early exit from the rest of his contract, after an episode of his independent Karl Stefanovic Show podcast was removed from his feed but later re-uploaded on Pauline Hanson‘s YouTube channel.
When sharing the episode with controversial UK activist Tommy Robinson, Hanson’s Please Explain channel said:
“It looks like they’re trying to sack my good friend Karl Stefanovic for this video with Tommy Robinson!“
“Deb Knight was a huge flop for Channel 9 and while she was busy grilling me over One Nation’s polling Channel 9’s ratings were in the toilet.“
“In 2019 on live TV with her, I called on Channel 9 to bring back Karl. Now with 6 months to go on his contract the weak management of Channel 9 want to sack Karl over this interview.“
As it turns out, the sacking part was right.
This makes the recent decision of a collaboration of sorts between Stefanovic, Eddie McGuire, Nine and ARN one to watch ahead of this Friday’s episode of The Long Weekend, airing tomorrow at midday AEST on the GOLD Network, iHeart, across social platforms, as well as on 9Now and Stan.
What will become of that if the TV involvement (and presumably some of the financial assistance) is gone?
Stefanovic is currently on leave from Nine and his Today Show responsibilities.
Nine is yet to comment.
Image: ARN
Good riddance. Have fun doing live reads on your podcast.
EDITOR: This post has been edited to remove personal insults.
The interview was worth a watch.
Silly how scared the establishment over one person’s views, even when those views expressed some of the worse going ons in the uk
Karl couldn’t have played this better if he tried (and honestly, hasn’t he?). He’ll walk away with a million dollars and a massive, free publicity pump for his podcast.
Nine just handed him the ultimate martyr card. Now he gets to pivot and rebrand as the man who can’t be silenced, even after mainstream TV cancelled him. Whoever is financing this podcast has just made themselves very rich.
It’s an absolute masterclass in spinning a sacking into gold….no pun intended
I personally wouldn’t be overly surprised if Karl Stefanovic’s departure from Nine has actually been a while in the making and wouldn’t even be surprised if it was some kind of pre-planned publicity stunt.
While it’s certainly not difficult to imagine new marketing for Karl Stefanovic’s podcast emphasising his so-called “cancellation” from mainstream media, at the same time I’d think he’s not completely stupid and would’ve known that interviewing guests Today/Nine won’t touch for very good reasons was likely to raise eyebrows with North Sydney management.
Either way, it’ll be rather interesting to see how long Karl & Eddie’s show on Gold lasts for. I can’t imagine the Jonesy & Amanda crew being all that thrilled about having “The Long Weekend” as a lead-in on Fridays, especially since reliable reports point to Jessica Rowe (along with her husband, although I doubt Pete gets to listen much these days given the hours he works…) being a longtime fan/friend of the J&A show.