The secret plan to ‘blow up’ Today, Packer’s girlfriend causes a stir at Mar-a-Lago – plus Nine’s open secret about Liz Hayes and what it means for Sam and Tracy: INSIDE MAIL

In our must-read Mail+ column, Steve Jackson and Peter van Onselen reveal what’s REALLY going on in the worlds of media and politics each week. 

Where in the world is Liz Hayes? 

It’s a story worthy of one of 60 Minutes’ trademark global investigations: where in the world is Liz Hayes? And is there a potential conflict brewing between her and the network’s two other biggest and best-known female stars, Tracy Grimshaw and Sam Armytage?

Nine’s long-reigning queen of the small screen has been largely missing in action since the network axed her eponymous true crime series, Under Investigation with Liz Hayes, six months ago.

When we broke the news last August, the network swore, hand on heart, that Hayes would be returning to her regular stomping ground at 60 Minutes.

But that simply hasn’t happened.

Indeed, the award-winning journalist has only featured on Sixty about four times in two years – and that includes appearing in a story to promote her memoir.

Inside Mail has been hearing murmurs for months that the much-loved presenter was less than enamored with the current set-up at 60 Minutes and wasn’t particularly interested in returning.

And who could blame her?

Hayes has spent much of the past three decades scouring the globe for 60 Minutes stories and accrued more frequent flyer points than just about anyone else in the country in the process.

It’s not so much a matter of ‘been there, done that’, than ‘been there, done that six times’. 

Surely Hayes is well overdue for a change of scenery – and the big open secret at Nine is she’s weeks away from making a major announcement.

What’s the announcement? 

Well, this is where the plot thickens and the narrative goes all Agatha Christie.

Nine is being super secretive and refusing to comment on whether 60 Minutes’ headline star is still 60 Minutes’ headline star – even though she clearly doesn’t feature in the show’s latest promo.

Even the program’s bosses told us they didn’t know what was happening with their biggest star just one week out from the start of the ratings year.

But that’s not all.

Nine also refused to confirm whether she’ll still be at the station by the time she celebrates her next birthday in May.

Instead, they said they’d let us know when there was something to let us know.

Sometimes not saying anything says it all really, doesn’t it? 

The hot tip is that Hayes is poised to announce her retirement from Nine after 44 years, having initially signed on as a news reporter back in 1981, before graduating to Today show host alongside Steve Liebmann five years later.

She fronted the long-running brekky television staple for a decade before switching gears – and programs – and joining 60 Minutes in 1996 and quickly establishing herself as one of the show’s biggest drawcards.

It’s little wonder Nine’s director of television, Michael Healy, is said to be loathe to lose someone of Hayes’ calibre – as well as the star power she brings to the network – and is desperately trying to convince her to stay on in at least some capacity.

In fact, we hear he was behind the decision to dispatch Hayes to cover the U.S. election live from Washington, D.C., last year alongside Karl Stefanovic in a bid to reposition her as the network’s chief global reporter.

Alas, even that play is fraught with danger given it would ignite a battle of the blondes at the network, with Hayes forced to scrap it out with former ACA host Tracy Grimshaw and new signing Sam Armytage for the choicest stories.

So far, the only project Nine has confirmed Armytage is fronting this year is the network’s local version of U.S. dating show The Golden Bachelor, which apparently follows the love lives of a group of retirees.

However, Armytage is much more than just a reality show host, with her career deeply rooted in broadcast journalism, across breakfast TV, hard news and long-form current affairs.

What’s more, the human headline is a human headline for a reason and she has a deep connection with the audience – so much so that Nine’s top brass was keen to trial her as a potential Today show host for two weeks over the summer.

That short stint was more than enough to unsettle some of the program’s incumbent talent while proving Armytage still has what it takes to drive live news coverage.

One thing is for certain: her star is most definitely on the rise at Nine. 

Meanwhile, Grimshaw remains on a year-by-year deal with the network and, after the success of her well-received investigation into the limit of human longevity – Do You Want to Live Forever? – last year, she is said to be keen to front more big-ticket specials.

The hard-hitting interviewer also attracted plenty of attention after filing her first report for 60 Minutes last September – though received little love from her new colleagues.

As we revealed at the time, Grimshaw publicly confirmed speculation she would start reporting for Sixty while posting a photo of herself cosying up to her first interview subject, former Aussie supermodel Elle Macpherson, at Bondi Pavilion.

Although the post was warmly greeted by a host of high-profile TV types, including former Nine star Lisa Wilkinson, it was largely ignored by 60 Minutes’ other stars. Tough crowd. 

Now, we’re not huge fans of surprises, so we reached out to Hayes directly to ask what the future held for her at Nine, and why the network was being so evasive about everything.

But like everyone else in the industry it seems, we’re still waiting to hear what she has planned.

Spotlight on Seven’s new investigative line-up

Crafting hour-long television investigations is not for the faint-hearted, and not every episode can be a winner.

Still, at this point, Seven’s cut-priced 60 Minutes knockoff, Spotlight, would probably be happy with just one ratings success story given even the program’s most loyal staffers are now openly questioning how long the struggling show can survive. 

Fear not, though, because Inside Mail can reveal Seven’s news chiefs have absolutely no intention of shying away from the fight and have spent the summer quietly beefing up the series’ investigative journalism chops.

Indeed, they’ve now effectively trebled their team of probing reporters.  

Highly regarded former U.S. and Europe correspondent Ashlee Mullany got her feet under the desk at Spotlight in the past week after moving back to Australia for the role and is expected to play a central role in show’s existential battle for eyeballs this year.

Spotlight has also re-signed founding reporter turned yacht master Denham Hitchcock, who we hear will be back on the books from Monday.  

It comes two years after the chisel-jawed newshound quit the program and sailed off into the sunset with ambitions of turning his boat life with Brazilian wife Mari and daughter Kaia into a docuseries… only to discover no one much cares about sailing.

(Sure, we watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart but, let’s be honest, we’re just feigning interest).

Ostensibly, Hitchcock will return to Spotlight as a freelance producer but, given his strong on-air pedigree, there’s already talk within Seven that it won’t take too long before he’s back on the box too.

The new recruits will complement the program’s chief correspondent Liam Bartlett, who was tasked with holding the program together as a one-man band last year.

The booming baritone fronted the show’s few glimmers of light: a hard-hitting investigation into the bogus war crimes allegations levelled against Heston Russell and an exclusive interview with James Packer and Robbie Williams on the billionaire’s mega-yacht off Tahiti (not bad work, if you can get it). 

The reinforcements will also be competing for air time against the show’s affable host Michael Usher.

The one-time 60 Minutes star has found himself at something of a loose end and with a lot of spare time on his hands after a run of bad luck of late. 

First, he was bumped from his main gig reading the late-night news bulletin, The Latest, after production of the show switched to the Perth newsroom last March (only for it to be axed entirely over the summer break). 

Then he saw his duties further reduced after being made to share his desk on Sydney’s 6pm weekend news bulletins with new co-host Angela Cox. 

Now, we’re hearing the network’s new flavour of the month, Hugh Whitfield, has leapfrogged him for the prized gig of heading up the upcoming federal election coverage. 

As disappointing as all that sounds, it’s actually freed him up to dedicate more time to Spotlight and it’s must-win war with 60 Minutes when it returns to the airwaves in April.

Will all this be enough to break the show’s long-running losing streak? Who knows? But get the popcorn ready, it will definitely be an entertaining contest.

Nine execs’ bright new idea to blow up Today show 

Five years ago, Nine’s brains trust had a bright idea: ‘Everyone is trying to make interesting TV… that’s so predictable. So here’s what we do: let’s blow up the Today show, drop Karl Stefanovic and try to make it as bland as possible? No one else is doing bland, right? The audience will love it!’

Strangely enough, in practice, turning the Today show into a drudging snooze-fest somehow failed to meet expectations and the network’s news bosses begrudgingly ended up begging Karl to make a comeback.

Half a decade on, though, there’s a new brains trust at the network, with a bright new idea: ‘Hey, let’s blow up the Today show and drop Karl Stefanovic? Nobody’s thought of that, right?’

Now, if that sounds way too ridiculous to be true – believe us, it’s not. 

A well-placed senior exec reckons there is a push within Nine’s Denison St HQ to completely overhaul the nation’s perennially second-placed brekky program. 

They claim the show could even be shifted to the southern capital and rebuilt around co-host Sarah Abo as execs desperately try to entice younger viewers to watch.

‘Today show is chaos,’ our senior spy told us. ‘There are genuine conversations about Karl getting a new night show, Sarah gets sent to Melbourne and they rebuild Today out of Melbourne studios.

‘It’s the market to smash Seven in – if they can boost Melbourne ratings by a few per cent, they would actually get the national crown.

‘And Karl wants off Today (like always) because of the hours. Not saying it will happen – but there are genuine high-level programming conversations.

‘If Karl left it would be for a weekly late night-show and they’d put him on 60 Minutes too, because Liz is rumoured to be going, so they’d need the star power.

‘And Today needs a massive overhaul. They think they can rebuild from the ground up as Sarah is a star and get a solid bloke talent alongside her.

‘It’s so bad at the moment, they’re almost getting beaten by Today Extra all week.’

Sure, they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results… but then again, the TV game is a crazy, mixed-up world. 

Indeed, stay tuned for more major developments in this space in the coming days.  

Will network contract negotiations go Karlito’s way? 

Now, all this talk of a Today show revamp comes at quite a curious time given Karl Stefanovic‘s multimillion-dollar network deal is up for renewal later this year. 

But just how much is the tireless entertainer really worth to the network? 

Well, that depends on which of Nine’s passing parade of chief executives you ask.

Former Nine-boss-turned-Bondi-streetfighter David Gyngell famously made Stefanovic the richest man on television after signing him to a $3million-a-year deal amid concerns he was about to defect to Seven a decade ago.

Then his successor, ‘Hollywood’ Hugh Marks, reined in Stefanovic’s deal to $1.8million almost six years ago.

Next up, starry-eye people pleaser Mike Sneesby, bumped Stefanovic’s deal right back up again about two-and-a-half years ago.

Now, his successor and the latest in Nine’s conga line of bosses, interim chief Matt Stanton, is said to be keen to cut back Karl’s paycheck once more.

(Seriously, the bloke’s contract goes through more ups and downs than the Thunderbolt at Dreamworld). 

Now, on one hand, he is undeniably one of Nine’s biggest stars and hardest workers.

But he also lives a high-flying lifestyle that doesn’t come cheap. 

Take, for example, his current housing situation: he is renting a ritzy four-bedroom mansion in Sydney’s Northbridge for $3,000 a week, while he outlaying millions to build a ritzy four-bedroom mansion in the neighbouring suburb of Castlecrag.

Let’s not even mention the team of trainers the increasingly trimmed and toned showman has been working with of late. 

On the other hand? Well, we hear the execs at the cash-strapped network are one short step away from washing windscreens at your local traffic lights for spare change. 

So we’re sure Karl’s salary is going to become a hot topic in the coming months. 

Adding further intrigue, we hear the good ship HMAS Nine Network has already sprung a few leaks and a couple of network insiders have been actively briefing against the Today show host in the lead-up to his contract talks. 

An almost full rap sheet of his various embarrassing escapades even found its way into a Sydney gossip column last week.

The helpful recap included an entire rundown on Stefanovic’s notorious Ubergate debacle while also hinting at some sort of Bundy Rum product placement drama from years ago.

The only supposed indiscretion that didn’t cop a mention was that time back in 2019 when some mischievous hacker broke into Karl’s Instagram account, liked a post about how rubbish the Today show was in his absence, then politely logged out.

We’re not sure how this is all going to play out just yet (though we have our suspicions). 

Either way, we’re certainly on board for the ride.

Guardianista’s reverse Midas touch

As we bear down on the one-year anniversary of former Guardian Australia political editor Katherine Murphy leaving journalism to practise the dark art of political spin within Albo‘s office, it’s worth reflecting on how the PM has fared since then.

In the 12 months since the Canberra press gallery’s left-wing doyenne started telling the prime minister what to do in private rather than publicly, Labor’s primary vote has fallen, it has dropped behind the Coalition on the two-party vote, and Albo’s personal approval ratings have plummeted.

This week’s Newspoll gave him a pathetic net satisfaction rating of minus 20! It can’t all be blamed on Murpharoo, to be fair. 

The decline began in earnest after the failure of the Voice referendum, which happened before she officially joined Team Albo. 

Of course, Murpharoo had been writing piece after piece for the Guardian advocating for the Voice, but had she been on PM’s payroll she might have been more strategic and pragmatic about the political consequences of failure. 

Or not…

Packer’s girlfriend causes a stir at Mar-a-Lago

The problem with social media influencers is they’re always on social media influencing – even at the most inopportune times. 

So it’s little wonder we’re hearing that James Packer‘s latest flame, Renee Blythewood, caused something of a hubbub after posting a series of pics from Donald Trump’s star-studded pre-inauguration bash at his Mar-a-Lago home.

Word is all the president’s men (okay, not all, but a few) were less than impressed with the model’s happy snaps of the leader of the free world chowing down with her billionaire beau, X owner Elon Musk and movie producer Brett Ratner at the luncheon.

The pics quickly went viral – and were picked up by media outlets around the globe -after Blythewood posted them on her Instagram page.

And, sure, we get it. They’re not exactly the most flattering shots of the president – but given he’s the most photographed man on the planet, he’s probably been seen on worse hair days.

Besides, Trump has been in a fairly forgiving mood lately and doling out plenty of pardons since returning to the Oval Office, so we’re sure he’ll be more than happy to let a few photos slide.

As for Blythewood, it seems she’s since switched her Instagram profile to private -doubtless to keep out all those pesky journos’ prying eyes.

Channel Seven stars taking network to the cleaners 

There’s no disputing times are tough in TV thanks to an advertising downturn that shows little sign of abating.

But it seems the bean counters at Seven have now resorted to rummaging down the back of the couch for loose change while trying to keep the lights on.

The cost-cutting has gotten so severe, the accountants have started going through every single, solitary line of the station’s budget as they look to rein in expenses. 

And, boy, did they find a doozy this month when they discovered a host of news reporters had been literally taking the channel to the cleaners for years.

Apparently not happy with their generous paycheques, a number of supposedly scrupulous on-air types had been charging their personal dry-cleaning costs to the media company as part of a long-running rort under the network’s previous laissez-faire regime. 

We’re reliably informed the worst offenders have received a stern talking-to while a strongly worded email about inappropriate expense claims was sent out to all staff last week. 

What’s a couple of pressed shirts in the grand scheme of things, we hear you ask? 

Well, these things tend to have a nasty habit of adding up.

In fact, we hear that when the Today show’s execs ran a similar ruler over their expenses a couple of years back, they were shocked to learn almost every single one of their staffers was billing their breakfast at the channel’s in-house café to the program.

And it turns out cutting the perk has since saved Today about $250,000 a year. 

That’s a lot of smashed avo. 

Award-winning producer’s secret roster of A-list stars

Emmy Award-winning television producer Gareth Harvey is indisputably one of the best storytellers in the business and no stranger to capturing people’s attention.

So we were hardly surprised when people started talking about his new ‘Gareth Harvey Media’ website and promises to help manage corporate crises by harnessing the power of ‘truth-telling’ (a novel approach in the world of corporate spin!)

‘Leaders with a media reputation for straight-shooting and being spin-averse are the most effective public faces of modern corporations,’ Harvey said on his website.

‘They are not only respected by their companies, the media and the public – but are regularly called upon for authentic, informed and entertaining comment across a range of public issues.

‘They are the truth-tellers. Gareth’s bespoke media training focusses on the Big 4 of truth telling: authenticity, brevity, clarity and wit.’

So far, so good. But what really captured our attention was his promotion for ‘Black Label Training’ in what he bills as his ‘Truth Technique’.

‘Select clients can request “Black Label” interview training with one of Gareth’s A-list media personalities – major figures in Australia’s television and press industry,’ he boasts before adding (wait for it) ‘non-disclosure-agreements are mandatory’.

How intriguing.

So… Who’s on this secretive ‘A-list’? And why do clients need to sign an NDA preventing them from revealing the stars’ identities?

Like you, we wanted to find out. So we got in touch with Harvey to see if he would offer any hints.

Alas, the wily producer wasn’t giving anything away.

‘Well picked up mate, but you can see with the NDA mention that it is confidential!’ the TV legend told us. 

Oh well, you need to give us marks for trying.  

One thing’s for sure, though: given Harvey’s got one of the best contact books in the business, the names are unlikely to disappoint. 

We definitely know who we’ll be calling the next time we’re in a spot of bother.  

Message to Albo: please stay at home

Is there anything worse than an unwanted PM trying to get involved in delicately poised grassroots marginal seat campaigns? 

Well, that’s the situation Albo now finds himself in.

Inside Mail can reveal the conundrum facing literally a dozen concerned marginal seat MPs and candidates across the country, but especially up and down the east coast. 

They can see what the polls are saying (Albo is unpopular). They know what their constituents are telling them when out door knocking (we like you but we’ve gone off Albo). 

And as a result they are trying hard to put some distance between themselves and their fearless leader… in the hope they can sandbag their seats and accept the central party’s financial help without too many prime ministerial visits.

While they’re hoping to buck the national swing expected against Labor and the PM, we hear Albo is being shielded from this quiet revolt among his marginal seat underlings, none of whom has – so far – built up enough Dutch courage to tell him to his face to please stay away.

‘The poor fellow, he honestly thinks he’s helping by staying busy and turning up’ is how one Labor source put it to us. 

No political party can hide from its leader, especially not a prime minister. 

But when a leader’s popularity falls below the party vote, as Albo’s now has, clever ways to minimise further damage could be the difference between victory and defeat.

Nine’s mind-blogging mindset on cash-for-comment 

Few things shock us in here at Inside Mail but we must confess we were somewhat surprised to read one Nine staffer’s troubling take on Alex Cullen‘s widely documented departure from the network last week.

For the two readers not across the saga, the Today show sports presenter got punted for accepting a $50,000 cash prize for taking part in a cheesy on-air stunt at the behest of Melbourne raffle promoter Adrian Portelli (see Inside Mails passim).

Understandably, Nine’s top brass didn’t think it was a particularly good look for their journos to be bought off so easily and came down hard.

It’s all a bit sad and no one ever likes seeing anyone out of a job.

Still, one irate Nine insider told Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph they didn’t get what all the fuss was about and claimed the media giant’s execs were somehow the real villains of the piece for axing Cullen.

How’s that work now? 

Well, the insider reckoned it was just ‘a silly mistake’ that could have been managed by suspending Cullen for six weeks and ‘making him do a refresher on media ethics’. 

A media ethics ‘refresher’ course that reminds journalists they shouldn’t accept $50,000 cash payments – more than most people make in half a year – in exchange for misusing their privileged platform on air?

What are they even on about? 

If that’s truly the extent of the cash-for-comment mindset in at Nine, the problem is far worse than we feared.

Channel 10 boss has network staffers in stitches

Channel Ten staffers didn’t know whether to laugh or cry this week when they saw the network’s big cheese Beverley McGarvey publicly boasting about how great everything is at the network right now…

So, inevitably, they did both.

Inside Mail hears morale has plummeted at commercial television’s forgotten child amid a looming takeover of the network’s parent company, Paramount Global, in the U.S. and the ‘efficiencies’ and ‘restructuring’ that will doubtless come along with it.

Which, of course, means widespread budget cutbacks and job losses.

So Ten staffers were surprised to see McGarvey offering a little light relief in the form of a puff piece in The Australian on Monday in which she waxed optimistic about the station’s future and offered all sorts of illuminating industry insights.

Some were incensed, others gleefully amused – either way, they’ve all been sharing their favourite McGarveyisms among the buzzy Pyrmont group chats.

One much-cited, mind-bending observation to feature in the off-beat interview with James Manning came when McGarvey helpfully explained how TV ratings worked.

‘Sometimes when there’s a big night of TV, our ratings actually go up because there’s more people watching TV,’ she sagely confided.

‘They’re channel hopping, sampling what’s on different networks.’

Bev, don’t give away the industry secrets all at once – save some for the memoir!

Others joked that her unwieldy, overly descriptive, does-what-it-says-on-the-packet official title took up almost four whole lines in the national broadsheet paper.

(For those wondering, the mouthful of a moniker is ‘Paramount Australia and New Zealand’s president of Network 10 and head of streaming and regional lead’).

As for us, our favourite part was McGarvey’s claim that ‘when you combine the reach of Paramount in Australia on an annual basis, it was 94 per cent of the population in 2024 across all of our services’.

Ninety-four percent of the population watching Channel 10 and Paramount+? Lol.

Oh, Bev. No wonder you’ve got the team in stitches.

Kennedy survives Nine’s newsroom assassinations 

Nine’s Gold Coast and Darwin newsrooms are still adjusting to life following the network’s drastic newsroom culls last week that saw 11 jobs go across the two cities.

Retrenchments are always terrible, and we’re sure the network’s bosses fought the cuts for as long as they could.

On the plus side, at least the media company managed to find new roles for all but three of the impacted staffers.

We were also pleased to learn that Marcus Kennedy survived the newsroom massacre as Nine’s one remaining cameraman in the Northern Territory.

Marcus is the son of late Sydney news legend Les Kennedy – for whom the NSW media awards are named – and by all reports, according to colleagues, a rising cinematic star behind the camera.

We know times are tough in the Top End but we wish Marcus and his sole colleague, reporter Bianca Wylie, the best and hope they keep up the great work.

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