It’s 2016. But you wouldn’t know it looking at the difference in pay between the hosts of The Today Show.
A report by The Australian this morning revealed that Karl Stefanovic earns 2.5 times the salary of his female co-host Lisa Wilkinson.
While the exact details of Stevanovic’s contract are unconfirmed, the paper believes he rakes in roughly $2.5million annually, compared to $1million pay cheque Wilkinson agreed to in January.
You can watch Wilkinson tell Bill Shorten to check himself for “dinosaur” views on women and childcare below. Post continues after video.
Stefanovic’s three-year deal, which was signed in December last year, also reportedly includes an additional $500,000 should the programme meet its rating targets during that period.
Further highlighting the thickness of the host’s pay packet, The Australian also noted that the head of the Nine Network, CEO Hugh Marks, only earns $1.4million.
A spokesperson for Channel Nine said they had no comment on the report.
The newspaper report comes as Wilkinson launched a blistering attack on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten about sexism.
In a strongly worded editorial, The Today Show host urged Shorten to “take a look in the mirror” after comments he made following his $3 billion childcare package in which he said men “rely on women in Australia to do the childcare and to organise the childcare.”
“When Bill Shorten describes women as having the second job, that men ‘rely on women to take care of all things when it comes to looking after the kids’, in other words so men can get on with doing all the important stuff, isn’t he simply entrenching a stereotype of women as second class citizens?” Wilkinson said.
“Isn’t parenting about sharing responsibilities? And isn’t it confirming the outdated belief that women should always be in charge of the unpaid work and therefore giving any men who still do, permission to keep thinking that way … isn’t that like so last century?
Top Comments
unfortunately i find it hard to feel bad for someone, female or male getting paid $1m for sitting in front of a camera and reading scripts written for them by someone else. As this report says Karls pay is not actually known, so it is basically guessing, from a few easy searches every other site puts his 3 year contract at 1.5m including that $500,000 bonus so a base salary of 1m which would be the same as what Lisa has just signed.... But i guess a story like that would not create the sensationalism wanted nor the ability for the article to push its own agenda.
For what it is worth my wife earns considerably more then me, but then she deserves to she went to uni and does a harder job and she is absolutely amazing at it. My best friend who i work with gets paid more then me, but again she has worked hard for it and deserves it. In nether case do i think or feel it has anything to do with our genders.
There are so many factors involved just as there would be for Karl and Lisa that others have pointed out to simple put it down to gender is not really fair.
Sadly inequality still exists in many different ways in our society however it does not mean that you can simply throw a blanket over everything and label it as inequality nor is it right to manipulate facts and be loose with the truth to strengthen a argument.
You have to remember Karl is also on other programs on 9, such as 60 minutes. He also contributes to channel 9 news when there is a major story. Yes there is somewhat of a gender pay gap in other industries, however this is not it.