{"id":789716,"date":"2026-07-09T18:25:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/789716\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T18:25:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:25:22","slug":"insiders-reveal-the-real-story-behind-karl-stefanovic-a-monster-of-nines-own-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/789716\/","title":{"rendered":"Insiders reveal the real story behind Karl Stefanovic, a monster of Nine&#8217;s own making"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The last thing you see before entering the Today show soundstage at Channel Nine\u2019s North Sydney headquarters is Karl Stefanovic, captured in silhouette in a towering photograph, striding onto the set of Australia\u2019s longest-running breakfast television program.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"955\" height=\"1460\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-07-08-at-13.17.52-1-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1257286\" style=\"width:360px;height:auto\"  \/>A photograph of Karl Stefanovic in Channel Nine\u2019s North Sydney headquarters before the Today set (Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For years, this image reflected Stefanovic\u2019s status inside Nine. He wasn\u2019t simply the face of Today; he had become untouchable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat\u2019s the real story,\u201d said one former Nine news director to Crikey, granted anonymity to speak candidly, as have several sources in this article.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last thing you see before entering the Today show soundstage at Channel Nine\u2019s North Sydney headquarters is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[72202,64,63,36783,16289,134,5607,140970,12304,108851,55416,1685,93188,427],"class_list":["post-789716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alan-jones","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-channel-nine","tag-eddie-mcguire","tag-entertainment","tag-exclusive","tag-jessica-rowe","tag-karl-stefanovic","tag-kerry-packer","tag-lisa-wilkinson","tag-media","tag-the-today-show","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}