Here Today, gone tomorrow? The gospel according to Karl

March 21, 2026 — 5:00am

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Back in 2018, the first time Karl Stefanovic left the Today program, he said this: “I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be good enough to host this grand show for so long.” It was a suitably humble observation from a man who, despite the occasional headline that might have suggested he was a bit of a boofhead, is regarded by those who know him as a very decent fellow.

But like all such moments in television, steeped in the personal and the specific, the haze of feelings obscures the deeper truth of the business: it is an ever-changing, impersonal medium which has turned the art of reselling the same ideas with new faces into a kind of hypnotic alchemy.

Indeed, when the day comes that Stefanovic leaves Today – sooner rather than later, if the breathless reporting is based on anything more than the wild imaginings of restless journalists – it will not be because of some dramatic behind-the-scenes Machiavellian twist.

Rather, it will be because in television it was ever thus. Lisa Wilkinson moved on. So did Tracy Grimshaw. Liz Hayes. Steve Liebmann. Patrice Newell. George Negus. Sue Kellaway. Fatigue is inevitable. If Stefanovic goes after 25 years with Nine, which is the owner of this masthead, he will have lasted longer than most. If you can say one thing about television, it is a fickle medium.

The momentum behind this story, however, stems mostly from Stefanovic himself, and the decision to shift his “brand” into so-called male-perspective podcasting. To that end, he’s using The Joe Rogan Experience business model as a loose blueprint: soft right-wing, anti-woke, say-it-like-it-is, mainstream-narrative scepticism.

You’d applaud it for innovation, were it not a carbon copy of scores of other podcasts that stepped into the space and gained significant early........

© The Sydney Morning Herald