This morning, on Triple M Sydney Breakfast with Beau, Cat & Woodsy, Beau Ryan took aim at Nine Entertainment for the way they have handled the Karl Stefanovic situation calling it “a mess” and “ridiculous”. Throwing his support behind Karl, Beau said Karl shouldn’t have been penalised for comments made on his independent podcast.

Beau Ryan: “The whole thing is a mess. The entire thing is a mess. And look, I can see what’s happened here, but the thing I cannot wrap my head around is he is their big ticket item. Karl Stefanovic is the star at Channel Nine and they’ve allowed him to do the podcast.

Seeing what we all have all seen on social media, what is happening, who he’s interviewing, what he’s talking about, where it’s heading, and then they decide to sack him. Now the only reason they’ve decided to sack him is because of the pressure from advertiser boycott. And look, I understand all that because Channel Nine is a publicly listed company. But Karl isn’t going out there and doing what he’s doing on Channel Nine. He’s done probably what they’ve agreed to do on his own podcast, on his own platform.

So they’re like, you can have your cake and eat it too, right? They’ve said it’s like being in an open relationship and then breaking up with someone for cheating on you.”

Cat Lynch: “Yeah, and saying, well, I didn’t want you to be with that person.”

Beau: “‘Well. hang on. You couldn’t do that. You can’t go that far with it.’ The entire thing is a mess. I feel like this is going to be a lot harder for Channel Nine than it is for Karl.”

Aaron Woods: “What has he actually done wrong? Because you just said he hasn’t given a point of view or like, he hasn’t given his point. He’s just gone out and interviewed people.”

Beau: “He’s given a platform to [people]. And the whole thing has come back to the Tommy Robinson interview.

At the end of the day, it looks like Karl’s views are conservative. He might be progressive on some things, but he’s showing who he really is. He can’t show those stripes when he’s working for Channel Nine. But they crossed a line. Well, you know, Nine thought he crossed a line, and people and advertisers thought he crossed the line when he had Tommy Robinson on.

Now, not many people have given Tommy Robbinson a platform and some of them for good reason. He has got hard stance views on immigration, on Islam, on predatory behaviour, but he is banned from a lot of platforms, he’s banned from entering a lot of countries, he’s been detained. And Karl, as a journalist, his side of the story, I’m sure he’ll come out and say, he’s been getting everyone from all different walks of life. He hasn’t really shown the other side of a progressive.”