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Tracy Grimshaw's $500k 60 Minutes gig · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It's Monday, May twenty five. It's twenty twenty six. Lots
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: of talk about peace between Donald Trump and Iran, but
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: it'll take months before Australian motorists see the benefit at
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the petrol pump. It's unlikely the war has even slowed
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Iran's nuclear ambitions. It's a big week for the intelligence community,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: with both the Bondai Royal Commission and a Senate Estimates
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Hearing to examine police and counter terrorism budgets and planning
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: this week. Our live coverage of all those stories is
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: always on at the Australian dot com dot au. She's
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the beloved TV star who's hardly ever on TV, but
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: now it seems Tracy Grimshaw has a new gig and
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: there are hot rumors of a football dream team reuniting
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: on screen. Those are just two of the stories in
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: today's Meet Diary with Steve Jackson and Jacko's here in
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: just a moment. Steve Jackson is The Australian's Media Diary editor. Jacko.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Tracy Grimshaw, you're writing about her today. She's one of
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  Speaker 1: Australia's probably most legendary TV journalists.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Tracy Grimshaw. Welcome to a special edition of
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: A Current Affair. It feels like this election campaign will
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: never end, doesn't it.
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  Speaker 3: I couple this shit all the time. I'm sick of it.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Why are you still in it? Look at you? Look
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: at what it's doing to you. How long have you
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  Speaker 2: known that you're a bulldozer?
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  Speaker 4: What makes you so confident because of the life that
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  Speaker 4: I live.
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  Speaker 3: You don't hold a hose.
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  Speaker 2: You weren't in your tiny plucking people off rooftops. You
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: weren't doing sixteen hour days in ppe on COVID boards.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: There's more for us still to thrash out here.
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  Speaker 1: She's had a forty year career at Channel nine, starting
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  Speaker 1: out as a reporter in Melbourne. Longtime host of the
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Today Show one A Walkley for her very powerful interview
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  Speaker 1: with Fall and Footy star then Fall and Footy Star
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  Speaker 1: Mattie John's who went on to have huge success of
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  Speaker 1: his own on TV.
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  Speaker 2: She was naked, she was outnumbered. There was a very
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  Speaker 2: clear power imbalance in that room, wasn't there?
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  Speaker 1: Tracy?
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  Speaker 2: I was unaware that she was nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: Was nominated for a gold LOGI and you've been writing
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  Speaker 1: a little bit lately about what she's been doing since
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  Speaker 1: she retired as the host of A Current Affair a
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: few years ago. What is Tracy actually doing well?
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  Speaker 3: That's been the big question basically since she stood down
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  Speaker 3: as the host of a Current Affair a couple of
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  Speaker 3: years ago, because as we know, with nine they create
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  Speaker 3: all these big stars. They don't want to lose them, right,
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  Speaker 3: But it's been a question of right, well, keep her
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  Speaker 3: in the books, but in this time cost cutting and
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: their future news initiative, they can't just keep her in
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: the books not doing anything. And in the past couple
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: of years she's been sort of turning up doing a
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: two part series on how to Live Longer, and last
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: year she did three stories for sixty Minutes. So I've
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: been sort of trying to figure out what is her
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: actual job in there, And it turns out she's the
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  Speaker 3: fifth Sixty Minutes reporter, or at least as she's telling
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: people that now. So forget about being the fifth member
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  Speaker 3: of the Beatles. She's the fifth unknown member of sixty Minutes.
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  Speaker 3: So she's not on their website as one of the reporters.
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  Speaker 3: She's not in any of the official documentation as being
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: one of the reporters. But she's very much telling people
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  Speaker 3: I hear that she is on the show full time.
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  Speaker 1: A staff reporting job at sixty minutes is one of
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  Speaker 1: the great prizes in TV reporting, right. It's a ticket
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  Speaker 1: to lots of international travel, lots of big stories, big ratings,
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  Speaker 1: and in traditionally big money. Is she on the kind
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  Speaker 1: of salary that would justify a full time job at
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  Speaker 1: sixty minutes?
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  Speaker 3: She's on the money that would justify a full time
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  Speaker 3: salary position on that show. Unfortunately, she's also on the
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  Speaker 3: sort of money that justifies two of the current reporters
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  Speaker 3: on the show. So what's happened is you're right, that
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  Speaker 3: used to be the destination at nine to the point
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  Speaker 3: where people negotiating a new contract, whether it be Karl
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Stefanovic or Peter Overton, and I use those guys as
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  Speaker 3: examples because it still exists in their contract that they
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  Speaker 3: would go, all right, we're going to pay you this much.
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  Speaker 3: We're not going to get quite there and the money,
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  Speaker 3: but we'll tell you what we're going to do. We're
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  Speaker 3: going to let you do two sixty minute stories. And
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  Speaker 3: it was so prestigious that they would be prepared to
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  Speaker 3: not get paid as much in exchange for being able
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  Speaker 3: to front a couple of stories on sixty minutes ago.
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  Speaker 1: I'm getting a car park out the front.
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  Speaker 3: Well, better than a carfuck. It comes with international business
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  Speaker 3: class affairs to the far side of the globe and
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  Speaker 3: traditionally with that show to some more amazing meeting the
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  Speaker 3: most amazing people in the world in the most amazing places.
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  Speaker 3: Of course, their mantre has long been show us, don't
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  Speaker 3: tell us so all about being there and so Tracey's
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  Speaker 3: coming nearer though, where we've seen the big money go
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  Speaker 3: out of sixty minutes. It's not the powerhouse it used
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  Speaker 3: to be in many ways, a current affair now being
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  Speaker 3: a nightly news show that is phenomenally successful every night,
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  Speaker 3: particularly now that seven to stay tonight the rival show
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  Speaker 3: was asked a few years ago, so we're not seeing
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  Speaker 3: it being the big money show. It used to have
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  Speaker 3: a locked in timeslot seven point thirty on Sunday nights
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  Speaker 3: can't be moved at sixty minutes time. That has changed
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  Speaker 3: over the last decade, where all right, yeah, it's good,
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  Speaker 3: not as good as married at first sight, So it
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: gets moved around, so a lot of the reporters who
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  Speaker 3: come in now they're actually on half of what Tracy's on,
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  Speaker 3: but also they're churning out twelve eighteen stories a year
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  Speaker 3: Tracy last year three stories for sixty minutes. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: it's a very liberal use of the term full time
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  Speaker 3: if in fact she is full time.
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  Speaker 1: She's such a great interviewer, and this is the skill
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  Speaker 1: that's made a current affair unmissible when she was the host.
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  Speaker 1: She did an interview with Ell McPherson recently where she
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  Speaker 1: challenged her a little bit on some of her claims.
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  Speaker 1: She's so impressive and she's capable of being very forensic,
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  Speaker 1: but she's also very warm and lovely.
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  Speaker 2: Now this is where our interview gets a little uncomfortable
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  Speaker 2: for both of us.
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  Speaker 4: I want to be absolutely responsible in this moment, because
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  Speaker 4: people are looking at you, and they're looking at me
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  Speaker 4: as to you know, when they're making their own decisions.
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  Speaker 2: That's the responsibility that I feel, and I wouldn't normally
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: talk to I've never done this before. I've never talked
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: to anyone in such detail about something as personal as
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: breast cancer. But I think we need to go into
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: more detail around yours now because of the path you took,
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  Speaker 2: and because I'm so mindful of decisions people might make.
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  Speaker 1: I don't get the feeling she would want to be
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: traveling around the world on international business, even if it
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: was business class, eighteen times a year, though she wants
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to stay at home with her horses, doesn't she.
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  Speaker 3: I think everyone knows that Tracy Grimshaald has a phenomenal
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: reputation for being down to earth, very grounded, one of
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  Speaker 3: those things that in TV quite famous. You can't fake
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: it because you do that much television. And let's not
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  Speaker 3: forget she was on air for two and a half
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: hours every week in our lund rooms. You can't fake
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  Speaker 3: a personality while on TV that long. Cal Sevanovik, he's
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: not pretending to be someone else, nap Bars, not pretending.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: You can't be on TV that much. You either have
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: that genuine personality. And people love her, and that's one
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: of the problems nine is got. They don't want to
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  Speaker 3: lose her. And you don't blame Michael Healy, who's you know,
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  Speaker 3: the TV Spengalian at nine going whatever you do, don't leave.
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  Speaker 3: The problem they have now is TV's not making as
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  Speaker 3: much money. They're cutting back people, and one of those
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  Speaker 3: things where they're trying to justify the cost because they
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  Speaker 3: have shareholders, they have to go, all right, we've got
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  Speaker 3: to make Tracy seem busy. She's on half a million
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  Speaker 3: dollars a year and churning out three stories. We're talking
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  Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty six thousand a story, and it's
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  Speaker 3: not bad work if you can get it, but you can't.
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  Speaker 1: I wish someone would say, how do we make them
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  Speaker 1: more busy? You know?
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  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, well tell you what. One hundred and sixty
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  Speaker 3: six thousand dollars a story. It comes with the producer,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: the line up, everything, and the first grade Cameron crew.
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  Speaker 3: So you can see the problem they've got is we
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  Speaker 3: want Tracy do The other reporters know that she's telling
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  Speaker 3: people that she's full time. And the reason I know
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  Speaker 3: about it is because some of the people she's been
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  Speaker 3: telling that she is full time have told me because
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  Speaker 3: she's been chasing interviews and big hit interviews Pauline Hansen. Jesus,
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  Speaker 3: how many times have we heard Pauline Hanson be interviewed?
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  Speaker 3: Not enough times? It turns out, so Carl Stephanovick's only
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  Speaker 3: interviewed here what twelve times on the podcast this year.
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  Speaker 3: You might have to do Barnaby Joyce again next week.
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  Speaker 3: But now Tracy wants to interview Pauline for sixty minutes.
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  Speaker 3: She's told James Ashby Pauline's you know is Bengali and
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  Speaker 3: mister fix It that she's full time on the show
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  Speaker 3: and she would like to interview Pauline for sixty minutes.
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  Speaker 3: And word has filtered back to me, and I'm not
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  Speaker 3: going to let that word filter back to the people
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  Speaker 3: who are currently on sixty minutes, who probably don't know
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  Speaker 3: that she's competing with them for stories. Now, well, that's very.
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  Speaker 1: Cood kind of you.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: I try to help legacy.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Wages are a bit of a thing at Nine at
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  Speaker 1: the moment. One of their big stars, Ray Hadley, on
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  Speaker 1: nine Radio what used to be nine Radio. He left
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: TGB where he was producing a nationally syndicated show. But
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: he's still getting paid. Why is that and what are
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: they going to do with him?
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  Speaker 3: Well, he's still being paid by nine. So nine sold
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: the radio division, but it's the it's kept the paycheck
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: that's going out to Ray. So when Ray retired from
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: radio just over a year ago, a year and a
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: half now almost je time flies. They didn't want him
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: competing against them, and you can't blame big name not
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: just calling sport, but you know, obviously particularly in New
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: South Wales and Queensland listeners will know as well, very
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: politically astute, and their big fear was Ray Hadley walks
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: out of radio and into some other network and starts
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: competing directly against them. So the deal they came up
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: with was basically, hey, we'll reduce the salary a bit,
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: but it's still eyewateringly big. We're talking more than half
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: a million dollars a year to not do anything. So
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: nine offloads it's nine Radio division to Arthur Lorndiani's family,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: billionaire pub baron and his family. And you'd think that
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: all the costs associated go with it, well they do
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: except four Ray Hadley's paycheck. So he's still on the
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: books with nine. And the thing is there's a lot
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: of talk about what are they going to do. Are
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: they going to just let him see it out till
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: the end of December without getting him to do anything,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: But there are whispers about there's a great opportunity to
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: do something with Ray Hadley and the other great Ray
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: of football, Ray Warren. They both have called ninety nine State.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: Of Origins.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: And are there are whispers, there are rumors going around
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: nine that hey, why don't we get the two Rays
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: put them together. There's centenary the one hundred State of
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Origin extravagander, and see if there's something we can do
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: with both of the legendary Rays together for this year.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: It would be a great thing that I'm sure they
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: could sell as one of the State of Origins. Contractually,
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: there are other people already in place to call those games.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: It takes some convincing to get both of them out
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: of semi retirement. But geez, wouldn't it be great?
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, it'd be amazing. Ray Warren really was the voice
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: of rugby league for decades. And it wasn't just the
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: voice of rugby league. He was the sound of rugby league. Fine, Fine,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: The sound of his voice just conjures up you know,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: winter Sunday afternoons, the Canberra Raiders winning everything in those
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: glory days when I was growing up. Yeah, he had
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: an amazing ability to conjure up that emotion. But calling
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: rugby league, especially in state of Origin, where the team
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: you know, is created for state of Origin, is a
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: massive intellectual task. You need to know who everyone is. Obviously,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: you need to know what team they actually play for,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: who they're playing for now, what position they're in. You
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: know what they're doing at any given moment, and it's
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: all happening in incredibly high speed now. And I think
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: it was that that intellectual task of keeping up and
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: being on it all the time that prompted Ray Warren's retirement,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: wasn't it. It's too much for someone as you get
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: older to be able to keep up.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Like that one hundred percent. It's not like these guys
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: are storytellers. So one of the things you can just
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: watch the State of Origin without commentary, and I've done it,
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: amazing thing, amazing trial, I should say, I don't know
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: how amazing it was in practice. But about twenty years ago,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Fox Sports did this idea with when one of your
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: options when watching a game of football was you could
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: listen to two gibbers that were calling it from their
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: lound room and it was hit the red button, and
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: one of it was Jimbo and his mate Dazz. They're
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: finished at the skate park in Campbelltown and they're going
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: to call the Penrith Panthers game for you from their
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: laund room, and it was this great thinking, Oh well,
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: we could be like famous rugby league cars.
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  Speaker 1: It's a great idea.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: No, it's terrible.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: It's terrible because what it made you appreciate was they're
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: not just saying, oh, you know, whoever the halfback is
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: has the ball and he's played it out wide. They're
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: telling you half back has the ball. He just got
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: married last week, he's got three kids, and of course
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: that means that this is his first game back after
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: the birth of child three, and child three will go
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: to school with his teammate and there's a grudge between
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: and it's the big the narrative, and that turns it
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: into a story where all of a sudden, we're caring
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: about These guys. Aren't just players running around on a paddock.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: These are heroes and and so Ray Hadley and Ray
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: Warren for decades turned it into a theater. These are
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: the guys that that narrated the theater of sport. And
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: again that Fox Sports experiment, and I think it only
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: lasted one season. If the season was it, they called.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: The referee for at a word too many times.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Oh probably. You could almost hear them drinking Bundy and
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: coke in the background. But it just showed you the
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: artistry of doing that. And it's one of those things
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: where everyone, I think, goes, hell, how easy would that
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: be just to talk football? And unfortunately, when it's a
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: couple of your mates calling a game, it's not easy.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: This is a great idea, but realistically, is there any
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: chance of this actually coming off?
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Look? Ray Warren probably, Okay, definitely, Claire, You're right, he's
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: not coming back. He's eighty five, he's hung up, he's Mike.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: He's not going to come to the party. Ray Hadley,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: on the other hand, he's being paid. He's being paid
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: by nine nine of the rights holders. He loves rugby league.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: I reckon, we're a chance of half of it coming off.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to find out and find out what's
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: in the rest of the diary.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Thanks Jacko, all right, thank you, Claire.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Steve Jackson is The Australian's mediate Diary editor. You can
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: read the diary right now at the Australian dot com
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: dot au.