Karl’s unfinished castle gives him one big reason to flog podcast ads

In this week’s On Background, Karl Stefanovic has one big reason to sell podcast ads, Jackie ‘O’ Henderson goes to the mat for her ARN shares, Aunty embraces AI, and an ex-ABC producer’s unfair dismissal claim spanning 20 years gets short shrift.

Karl’s castle

Now that Karl Stefanovic is on his way out of Nine, on terms that weren’t clear by Thursday afternoon, he has a lot riding on his new podcast. Top of the list? An enormous knockdown rebuild that is half-finished in a pricey, waterfront suburb on Sydney’s lower north shore.

Plans lodged with the local council show the old brick house is on the way out. In its place will be an architect-designed home about twice the size, replete with the obligatory “basement car parking, swimming pool and associated works”.

One whole room is marked “media storage” on the plans, though presumably it’s an either/or situation. There are walk-in wardrobes aplenty, landscaped gardens, and a wine storage area. And then there’s a spiral staircase that runs from the basement to the top floor. None of this comes cheap.

Stefanovic and his wife, Jasmine, reportedly bought the property for $3.2 million in 2021 and were initially approved for a $4.5 million rebuild. That’s no stress for a man on a Nine salary of around $2.5 million, but how many ads for male supplements – a mainstay of Stefanovic’s culture wars heavy podcast – will he have to sell to keep the builders happy?

Jackie O fights for every penny

There aren’t many people clamouring to buy shares in ARN these days, what with the radio company behind the KIIS and Gold stations landing cleanskin Karl Stefanovic only to run headlong into the Tommy Robinson controversy.

One person who inadvertently got out, only to demand compensation, is Jackie ‘O’ Henderson.

When the former KIIS presenter signed her $100 million-odd deal with the company in 2023, she got a $3 million loan to buy shares in her employer.

Bloomberg records show that her company, Henderson Media, held 3,161,166 shares in ARN, suggesting she bought in when they were trading at about $1 if all the equity came from the loan.

But the borrowing agreement was hardly your average bank loan. Under the deal, Henderson only had to repay the $3 million if she terminated her contract as a “bad leaver”.

The company clearly believes that happened, because it sold the shares on May 5 according to legal filings from Henderson, and put the proceeds towards repaying the loan. That was after her spectacular bust-up with former co-host Kyle Sandilands.

The sale wouldn’t have gone far towards Henderson’s alleged debt. ARN’s shares have been hovering around 25¢ for the past couple of months, meaning her whole share package would’ve been worth about $790,000.

Regardless, Henderson wants compensation for the sale. In updated legal filings, she claims the sale was done without authority and demands repayment, either at the amount the shares were sold for, or, in an optimistic move, the “estimated value of the commencement shares as at 31 December 2034”.

Sandilands might’ve settled his claim for $13.5 million in cash and ads, but that doesn’t seem to mean anything to the woman he allegedly bullied for years. She’s fighting for every penny.

Henderson’s manager and ARN’s spokesman declined to comment.

ABC courtside

ARN isn’t the only media company dragged reluctantly into the Federal Court by disgruntled former employees. The ABC has, until recently, been quietly battling what sounds like a voluminous claim brought by former Australian Story producer Ryan Brookhouse.

Brookhouse brought an action against the public broadcaster last year, alleging breaches of the Fair Work Act and Privacy Act. The court hasn’t released Brookhouse’s statement of claim, but his allegations go back over 20 years.

Brookhouse represented himself in the proceedings, which is always a bit of a tell. Billionaire mining magnate and litigation enthusiast Clive Palmer, who can afford any barrister of his choosing, has been known to do this from time to time.

Brookhouse’s claim ended as many of Palmer’s have – tossed out by Federal Court justice Wendy Abraham this month.

Right from the outset, the ABC told Brookhouse he lacked standing to bring some of his claims, and that they were outside the six-year limitation period in the Fair Work Act. They twice gave him the opportunity to fix the flaws in his legal filings, “alongside detailed guidance on how to improve his application,” Abraham wrote in her judgment.

Eventually, Aunty’s lawyers brought an application for the claim to be summarily dismissed, arguing that it lacked any reasonable prospect of success. They argued that some of Brookhouse’s claims were “incoherent, ambiguous and embarrassing”. Ouch. The ABC didn’t even know where to begin responding, the broadcaster said, because it “aggregates wide-ranging and unparticularised grievances across two decades that is not capable of being answered in a fair or efficient way”.

Abraham was sympathetic to Brookhouse’s plight as a self-represented litigant, but agreed that there were “fundamental flaws” with his claim. In effect, he was trying to sue the ABC for things he was unable to sue for. He was given ample opportunity to fix his claim, but failed to do so.

“There is no basis pleaded for any of the assertions, which also appear to cover over 20 years,” Abraham said.

“The ABC acknowledges the Federal Court has dismissed proceedings brought by Mr Ryan Brookhouse against the ABC, with costs awarded to the ABC,” the broadcaster said.

Brookhouse was contacted for comment.

Aunty’s AI champions

The ABC is seeking “100 AI champions” to help roll out Claude across its newsrooms after selecting Anthropic’s chatbot as its AI tool of choice.

It follows a months-long pilot program in which a select group of staff tested various AI tools to pick a winner. And while Claude can indeed do things that would probably terrify plenty of AI-sceptical journos, we reckon Anthropic is a pretty good fit for Aunty.

As AI labs go, it is more progressive-coded than most, owing to its greater focus on safety. It is at loggerheads with the Trump administration after refusing to give the United States military unfettered access to its models. Chief executive Dario Amodei loves writing lengthy doomerish essays about how the technology that has made Anthropic a $1.3 trillion company could put billions out of work and trigger various flavours of apocalyptic scenario.

Now, Anthropic’s Claude will be rolled out to ABC staff, on top of its in-house tool ABC Assist and Microsoft Copilot.

“‌The roll-out of Claude will begin with a pilot in July involving 100 AI champions from across the organisation,” managing director Hugh Marks and chief people officer Deena Amorelli wrote in a note to staff on Thursday morning.

“The champions will play an important role supporting teams, sharing practical insights and helping to shape the responsible adoption of AI across the ABC.”

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