While the Logies will always be a Karl Stefanovic roast disguised as a celebration of Australian talent, this year’s ceremony wound up morphing into something slightly different: a really long audition, conducted in formal wear, for the most contested job in breakfast TV.
It was the question Channel 9 presenters tried desperately to avoid as they meandered down the red carpet on Sunday evening: Who are the new permanent hosts of Today? Is it … you?
Despite a solid effort from the network’s PR department to prepare these presenters with coy responses, the scrum of reporters on the red carpet couldn’t help but lend a hand in the recruitment process. I personally spent the evening cosplaying as a HR representative and interviewing the potential candidates as the red carpet became the setting for a glamorously impromptu job interview.
Former host Karl Stefanovic – who held the slot on-and-off for two decades – was nixed from the big job in June after interviewing far-right agitator Tommy Robinson on his independent podcast and attracting widespread scorn.
“I’d have sacked him – absolutely,” declared Eddie McGuire – a former Channel 9 CEO when Stefanovic was rising through the ranks.
With a freshly ousted Karl, and his co-host Sarah Abo on maternity leave, right now there are two seats that need filling on Today.
(Will Sarah return? Depends who you ask. She whirled up to the red carpet just weeks after giving birth, and breezed past some of the waiting media, which can mean whatever you want it to mean.)
Either way, network bosses are searching for a dynamic duo that crackles with chemistry and has the potential to topple arch rival Sunrise, fronted by Nat Barr and Matt Shirvington over on Seven.
At Sunday’s Logies, the pressure was on. Australia was watching. And so too were the Channel 9 overlords.
What’s more dangerous: live television, or a room full of TV execs?
“With one, there’s blood on the floor,” warned Channel 9 morning TV veteran Kerri-Anne Kennerley.
“ … I’ll let you guess which one.”
The obvious winning choice for the Today gig? Samantha Armytage, who led Sunrise to victory in the ratings with Kochie before quitting the early morning alarms in 2021. Now she’s in the Channel 9 stable as host of The Golden Bachelor, it only seems natural to plonk her down on the Today couch permanently.
At least, that’s what every journalist/HR rep on the red carpet thought. Ever the pro, Samantha delivered her admittedly pre-prepared response when “1000 people” asked her about it only minutes after arriving.
“I really enjoy filling in, I love breakfast TV and we’ll have to wait and see what happens,” she said with a smirk, gleefully aware of the non-answer she was providing again and again.
Samantha landed on the red carpet in a spangly, plunging jumpsuit – an outfit that seemed to declare she was the returning queen of breakfast TV, even if she wouldn’t say as much.
As we like to say in the HR biz: dress for the job you want.
Indeed, she has been filling in on Today here and there. In her most recent stint, Armytage – who said she can no longer be as “outrageous” as she once was on Sunrise, before the internet took random moments and turned them into out-of-context sound bites – made headlines for introducing some sexual innuendo to a story about a beaver.
“The trick is to make those jokes really early – like, 5.30am when no one’s watching,” she said.
Expert tip.
Armytage has long been reported as the white whale of Channel 9 TV boss Michael Healy, who is said to have wanted her fronting his breakfast show for years.
So, with beaver jokes in her back pocket and a winning track record, she has the danger and audience interest that cements her as one of our last true TV stars.
What would it take to make her sign on permanently as the host? For the first time, she swerved around the PR-approved response.
“MONEY.”
We’ll note that down on the recruitment file. Perhaps Channel 9 bosses can scrap Richard Wilkins’ hair and makeup budget and use the funds to beef-up the offer to Sam.
Filling the Today role is tough and it comes with a price. But what does the job require?
“It’s a highwire act,” said McGuire.
He has an interesting vantage point – not only having signed the cheques as Channel 9 CEO, but also having demanded more money as on-air talent and co-hosted alongside Stefanovic on Gold FM until Karl was removed after just two episodes following the podcast dramas.
“With Karl heading into the territory he’s heading into, it would’ve made it impossible for him to stay on the Today show to do the political interviews that are required – particularly heading into an election in Victoria,” he said.
“Karl had had enough of doing the Today show. He was doing it probably six months longer than he wanted to. The time came for him to move. There comes a time when it’s time to stop. It’s a bit like me with Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. The time came, and it had its run – you pivot and you go and find your new spot. But he’ll come back. Bert (Newton) left and came back.”
I pointed out to Eddie that Moonface Newton never palled around with controversial figures. Eddie kept monologuing.
“I’ve got no doubt Karl will come back in a different piece – whether in a political way or a journalistic way, time will tell. What people need to realise is showbiz is a circus. You go to see people doing the high wire act. The problem is everyone is so homogenised that there’s no spark and there’s no stars.”
No spark, no star. Ability to balance on a high wire. Add these criteria to the LinkedIn job posting.
It all sounds similar to the mournful sentiment of one Channel 9 talent wrangler who was lamenting the death of the TV star when I spoke to them just days after Karl was axed in June.
“There are so few stars on Australian TV. Karl was a star,” they said.
And what made Karl a star?
“Karl’s value is he was warm and affable and a little bit dangerous. But one day that danger crossed the threshold.”
Eddie had a similar view.
“You’ve got to have a bit of danger. That’s the thing. You’ve got to make people either love you or hate you,” he said.
(With all this talk of DANGER, I couldn’t help but think of the advertisements for the Logies ceremony – branded by Channel 7 as “live and dangerous” with 22-year-old host Robert Irwin. The junior wildlife warrior is lovely, but he’s about as dangerous as Harriet, the 175-year-old tortoise at Australia Zoo who died two decades ago. When he hit the stage to do the cha-cha in front of Shaun Micallef and Mick Molloy, I thought I’d accidentally sat on the remote and flicked over to a re-run of the ABC series Old People’s Home For Four-Year-Olds.)
Eddie continued to rant: “It’s not always about looking good and smelling nice – it’s about actually being interesting. Now, sometimes people cross that line and they lose the room. But that’s the high wire act. I think we probably need to have more live, more aggressive … more things that people want to watch and talk about the next day. People talk about the watercooler style of television – you’ve actually gotta put to air something people want to talk about.”
But putting yourself in the firing line – to gamble on the chance you might be loved or hated – is dangerous for the presenters themselves. That’s why for so long they’ve been paid the big bucks. Call it danger money.
Still, with execs across all the major free-to-air networks looking to pinch pennies, the glory days of multimillion-dollar cheques for on-air talent and long boozy lunches charged to the corporate card are getting more and more distant in the rear-view mirror.
Just ask Allison Langdon, who this month marks 25 years at Channel 9. What does she miss about the golden days at the network?
“We had much bigger budgets,” Langdon, who co-hosted Today with Karl before moving into the hosting role on A Current Affair, said.
(Later in the night, she won her second consecutive Logie for best news presenter, beating her former stablemate Karlos, who didn’t attend. The elephant in the room was not in the room.)
“We had a lot more money – when travelling for 60 Minutes … But it had to get tighter and leaner.”
Apparently, no one is safe from the cuts.
The Australian recently reported Sonia Kruger was entertaining the idea of booking TV gigs in the UK and US, as her bosses at Channel 7 reconsider the portfolio of reality shows she fronts – gigs that have kept her salary hovering around the $1 million mark, making her one of the highest paid Aussie presenters, a legacy contract from a time when that kind of cash could still be tossed around.
But isn’t an eye-watering salary the key element that cements a TV star? It creates mystique and aspiration – enough cash to buy a mansion overlooking Sydney Harbour and private jet trips to a holiday house in Noosa and designer clothes and overseas holidays that instil just the right amount of envy and curiosity in viewers who love just catching a glimpse of it all on Instagram. All of this creates the smoke and mirrors which build up a celebrity status that gets these presenters written about in the tabloids. And in return for exposing themselves – their views, their looks, their private lives – to breathless media speculation, on-air talent is compensated with big salaries for the sacrifice.
It takes a lot of cash to burn bright. TV stars aren’t driving around the suburbs in a Kia. But, in 2026, TV bosses seem to be curious about making that the norm.
One of the blokes reportedly considered for the Today gig was Channel 9 newsreader Joel Dry, who fronts the 6pm bulletin in Queensland. He’s handsome and affable. And, according to The Australian, was prepared to do the Today gig for the low, low price of just $500,000 a year – loose change compared to the million-dollar cheques banked by stars like Stefanovic and Armytage and Kruger. The public broadcaster probably pays more for its Play School presenters.
Anyway, dollars and cents are apparently not an issue for Dry. The Australian reported he was scheduled to do some test shows with Armytage, but he was dropped at the last moment.
As the lead HR recruitment officer for this role, I thought I’d circle back and ask Joel – who denied having any preliminary conversations with bosses to take over the gig full-time – about his experience in this hiring process and what his future goals are, should another opportunity open up in the near future.
“It’s a wonderful show and I’m happy to be a part of it at any stage when asked,” he said of Today.
“But I’ve got the best job in TV, as the newsreader on Channel 9 in Brisbane.”
Um, sure.
I note down in the HR file that Dry has a humble and grateful nature – refusing to show desperation or entitlement.
“I’ve never thought of (the Today gig). And when I filled in a bit over summer, I’m just a team player. When they ask me to help out, I help out. Wherever they need me to go. I can do that on short notice.”
Noble. But, as a fake HR executive, I need to see more passion in a potential candidate. Team players are nice but they’re not stars. Less diplomacy, more diva! Where’s the hunger? Do you want the job or not? This polite wellwishing – while PR-friendly – is not the danger Eddie and the Channel 9 execs are wanting from a potential TV star.
Take a leaf out of Sam Armytage’s book: demand more money and then make a joke about a beaver! We want aspirational and dangerous – get on board or get left behind.
I asked Joel what he thinks the Today show needs right now.
“Breakfast TV should still primarily be news. People wake up, they want to be informed. So I like people with a news background, news chops,” he said.
Huh. So … someone like … Brisbane’s 6pm news anchor Joel Dry?
Meanwhile, Sylvia Jeffreys was working overtime on the red carpet. As Karl Stefanovic’s sister-in-law (she’s married to the former TV star’s brother, News24 journalist Peter), she has been dodging questions about the ousted host for weeks while also being in the mix for the Today gig.
Cue: Sylvia’s pregnancy announcement, just hours before the red carpet.
The celebratory news may have been a nice distraction for some. But we’re on a time crunch as we look to fill one of the biggest roles in Australian television, and the window for expressions of interest is closing rapidly. Is she interested?
“That’s up to the bosses to make that decision. But I’m on the countdown to my own maternity leave now, which is delightful,” she said, before acknowledging that Sarah Abo is still seemingly poised to return to her co-host seat.
“All I’m focused on is my little baby girl and whether or not she’ll play goal attack or goal defence in the future.”
Sylvia wouldn’t be attending the after-party because she was scheduled to fill in as Today host this week, complete with 3am starts.
“At least everyone will know they have a sober host on-air tomorrow,” she said, poking fun at her brother-in-law’s infamous drunken appearance hosting Today the morning after the Logies in 2009.
As one media veteran pointed out to me recently, Channel 9 execs may be wary of installing Sylvia permanently in the gig because of her family ties to Karlos. It doesn’t matter her skill or accomplishments, she’ll always be weighed down by questions about her rogue brother-in-law.
Questions like … how did Karl respond to the baby news?
“We told him to clear his diary next year because he’ll have a lot of uncle duties to step into,” Sylvia said, before winding up the chat.
Very cute. The publicity department will appreciate the discretion.
But … where’s the danger?
Read related topics:James Weir Recaps