By Dexter "Box-Office" Reel
Karl Stefanovic wants out of a partnership — and he's paying to do it.
The longtime face of Nine's Today program has agreed to buy out the shares of Keshnee Ibrahim, his co-owner in the podcast venture 123 Podcast, after what he described in the New South Wales Supreme Court as an "irreconcilable breakdown" in their working relationship, the court heard Tuesday, according to The Guardian.
The show has been on hiatus since August, not long after it aired an interview with British far-right activist Tommy Robinson — a booking that drew scrutiny at the time. The Guardian's report does not specify whether that interview is connected to the falling-out between Stefanovic and Ibrahim; the court proceedings so far have centered on how to divide the pair's holdings in the company, not on programming decisions.
No financial terms of the buyout have been disclosed, and the case remains before the court. It's a quiet but telling episode in the broader shakeout of celebrity-fronted podcast ventures, where on-air chemistry doesn't always survive the business side of the business. Stefanovic, one of Australian television's most recognizable morning-show anchors, had positioned 123 Podcast as an extension of his brand beyond the Today desk; whether it resumes — and under whose ownership — is now a matter for the court, not the calendar.
We'll keep an eye on the docket. In the meantime, the mic stays dark.
— Loved it, hated it, or wasted my afternoon: no verdict yet, because there's no show to judge.
— Compiled from reporting by The Guardian.
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