AARON PATRICK: ARN under pressure over Karl Stefanovic as boycott targets show amid Tommy Robinson controversy

The media industry is watching the Karl Stefanovic saga closely, wondering if one of television’s best-known faces can succeed as an independent conservative podcaster and whether the challenged ARN Media radio network will stick with its latest hire who was meant to help it recover from the Kyle and Jackie O debacle.

On Thursday an ARN source said Stefanovic had pulled out of a scheduled radio appearance with fellow celebrity Eddie McGuire after being subjected to a torrent of criticism over a podcast interview with a right-wing British political activist.

The source said the 51-year-old made the decision to withdraw from Friday’s episode of the Long Weekend with Karl & Eddie show, a new show on the Gold network broadcast at noon on Fridays.

A source close to McGuire said: “It’s probably heading that way but 24 hours to go. At some stage it will happen.”

As one of Nine’s top stars who regularly interviews senior political leaders, Stefanovic has struggled to become as popular with women viewers as many of his male competitors. Some say they like his cheeky sense of humour and rugged looks, while others say they believe he lacks empathy and is overly blokey.

Stefanovic, who is overseas and could not be reached for comment, has not been fired by ARN and will hold discussions with the company’s executives about whether the program will continue, the source said.

ARN executives want to talk to him about whether he intends to use his separate podcast, the Karl Stefanovic Show, to become a conservative political commentator and interviewer, a position that might conflict with the light-hearted conversation style of the radio show.

A promotional blurb for the show says: “Join Karl and Eddie for GOLD’s Long Weekend as they unpack the biggest news stories of the week, preview the weekend ahead, share a laugh, play great songs, and swap a story … or twenty!”

The radio show, which has aired twice, is also made available to listeners through Nine’s 9NOW online digital service.

Boycott threat

Trying to recover from the implosion of the Kyle and Jackie O Show, the stake are high for ARN, a Sydney-based company traded on the Australian Securities Exchange. The Long Weekend was part of a plan by ARN to rebuild its audience and reputation after a fight between hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson led to the cancellation of their top-rating show.

One of the risks to ARN is a campaign by the Mad F---ing Witches activist group, which targets conservative media outlets, to convince advertisers to boycott Gold and other ARN stations over Stefanovic’s appearance.

The group, which had decided to attack Nine on social media using the #KancelKarl hashtag, claimed credit for a decision by the company’s executives to ask Stefanovic to step down as host of the morning Today show and end his employment with the network, a development reported on Wednesday evening in Nine’s newspapers but not confirmed by the company.

A spokeswoman for the group, which also pursued ARN over Sandilands’ on-air comments, said it did not want to inflict more commercial damage on ARN but a lot of its followers were unhappy with Stefanovic’s support for military veteran Ben Roberts-Smith, who has been charged with war crimes, and interview with British anti-immigration activist Tommy Robinson.

The group will wait for confirmation on whether his radio show will be cancelled before deciding whether to campaign for an advertiser boycott, a step that could be highly damaging for ARN, which has suffered a 39 per cent fall in the share price this year.

“It’s a real 50/50 at this stage,” the spokeswoman said. “We don’t want to continue the campaign but a lot of followers do.”

‘Unleash the beast’

Stefanovic launched his podcast five months ago by stating: “I’m going to unleash the beast. Are you ready to walk on the wild side?”

Separate from his employment at Nine, the 68 interviews with businesspeople, politicians and activists have attracted between 5100 and 392,000 views each on YouTube. But his support for Mr Roberts-Smith and friendly comments towards Robinson triggered a torrent of criticism that was too much for Nine.

Some rival media figures speculated Stefanovic deliberately provoked Nine so the company would terminate his employment contract, which is reported at $2 million a year. If true, the strategy could have backfired.

Industry sources said Stefanovic’s contract likely contained an agreement that he would not bring the company into disrepute, a clause Nine could argue was broken through his apparent endorsement of Robinson, who has been jailed for contempt of court and other matters. By invoking the disrepute clause, Nine may be able to avoid paying Stefanovic for remainder of his contract.

Even British politician Nigel Farage, the leader of right-wing group Reform UK, refuses to associate with Robinson.

“I don’t want him to join Reform UK and he won’t be,” Mr Farage said last January.

With his employment at Nine apparently over, nascent career at ARN under threat and little chance of joining Seven, which is wary of upsetting advertisers, Stefanovic may follow other ex-TV hosts and try to make a career as an independent podcaster catering to conservator voters who don’t trust traditional media outlets. In the US, they include Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson.

Media figures said Stefanovic would have to attract audiences from Britain and the US to make his podcast commercially viable, both challenging markets for an Australian without a following there.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, a long-time critic of traditional media outlets, supported Stefanovic, who she described as a “friend”.

“Tommy Robinson has a lesson for Australians,” she said on social media.

“If we don’t learn from the UK’s mistakes on immigration and radical Islam, we are going to face the same destruction. This is exactly what Karl was trying to bring to Australia’s attention.”

Anthony Albanese suggested Stefanovic’s interviews were examples of media content that could contribute to extremist political views.

“I don’t want to get into a debate about Nine at the moment, but you know, look at what’s happening,” he said at a conference in Canberra.

“You go down that road and you get further and further out on the edges of what is the mainstream political debate in this country, and you know, I think that that can have an impact.”