The story of Lisa Wilkinson’s acrimonious split from the Nine Network where she hosted Today for 10 years has been the water cooler story of the week, one day taking up four pages in the Daily Telegraph and 22 stories (at the last count) on the Daily Mail homepage. While Nine has been subjected to the blowtorch this week for not agreeing to pay Wilkinson what she wanted – which was pay equity with her co-host, Karl Stefanovic – attention will soon turn to Ten, the network in receivership which has offered Wilkinson a $2m lifeline – according to some reports. While it hasn’t been confirmed, News Corp has reported that she is poised to be the highest-paid woman in television at Ten.

Brekkie TV, made famous by the battle for supremacy between Seven’s Sunrise and Nine’s Today, is on the decline. Like all free-to-air TV, the audience numbers are dropping each year as they compete with a changing and crowded media landscape. These days the programs average about 250,000 viewers each a day in the five capital cities. But when TV hosts – who are being paid obscene amounts of money – fall out with their network bosses the fireworks make terrific tabloid fodder.

The momentum was with Wilkinson and her manager, Nick Fordham, who spun the line it was a gender equity issue and Wilkinson was roundly hailed as a role model for women fighting for wage equality everywhere. After two days of bad publicity the Nine chief executive, Hugh Marks, took the highly unusual step of going on the record to disclose the figures and say it had nothing to do with gender equity but more to do with Wilkinson’s roles outside Nine and Stefanovic’s extra workload. “She wanted $2.3m,” Marks told the Daily Telegraph. “It wasn’t a $200,000 shortfall to [Stefanovic’s] $2m magic number. It was $500,000.”

Now it’s the Ten network’s turn to take the heat and deal with the fallout internally from the hiring of Wilkinson. Scrambling for something to give the highly paid star, Ten announced she would be co-hosting The Sunday Project, an underwhelming show watched by fewer than 280,000 in primetime. If Ten is going to pay Wilkinson more than $2m then what is it going to do about The Project stars Carrie Bickmore and Waleed Aly, who are paid less than a quarter of that? Bickmore generously posted a welcome on Twitter but privately she is reported to be unhappy about the hiring of a presenter on a massive salary. Pay equity is set to become a hot topic behind the scenes at The Project when Wilkinson arrives in January.

Ten staffers are also asking how the Sydney-based Wilkinson will join The Project, which is filmed in Melbourne, if the hosting panel is already full? And what is Wilkinson going to have to do at Ten to earn that sort of money? Host Studio 10, the advertorial-funded morning show alongside Joe Hildebrand and Ita Buttrose? Will she have to throw to the guy selling mops and ladders? Ten is a cut-price, third-ranked network without the publicity machine of a Nine or a Seven. It’s not quite Sky News, where you have to apply your own makeup, but she won’t get the star treatment she’s used to at Nine. And it remains to be seen how the news department will fare under probable the new owner CBS.

Bit rich for Mitch?

The disclosure of the multimillion-dollar salaries paid by the commercial networks may take the heat out of the debate about the wages of the top presenters at the ABC. The communications minister, Mitch Fifield, has demanded that the broadcaster publish a list of the names and salaries of all staff who earn more than $200,000 by the end of November or face a change in the law to force it to comply. The ABC’s salaries are confidential but when they were accidentally leaked in 2013 it was revealed that Tony Jones and Leigh Sales earned between $200,000 and $300,000 a year. Which looks modest next to a cool $2m for Stefanovic. At $900,000 even the ABC managing director, Michelle Guthrie, doesn’t come close to the hosts of Today and Sunrise. And, according to that leak, the ABC Breakfast host Virginia Trioli earned $84,000 more than her male counterpart, Michael Rowland, on $151,006.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation amendment (fair and balanced) bill 2017, which adds special clauses to ensure coverage to regional and rural Australia is safeguarded, will require news and information to be “fair” and “balanced”. Labor and the Greens have already said they will not support the legislation.

For Fox’s sake

The News awards are Rupert Murdoch’s in-house prize-giving night when journalists frock up and are rewarded for journalism right across the News Corp Australia stable, which this year for the first time includes Sky News and Fox Sports.

If you don’t get a Walkley award you can always get a News gong was the thinking behind setting up the awards, although News seems to be moving towards making the night a marketing exercise. On Friday the Daily Telegraph grouped announcement of its Walkley and News awards nominations as “the country’s two most prestigious [journalism] awards”. It’s not a huge surprise that it has more nominations in the latter. Still, newspaper noses are out of joint after the Foxtel TV offerings were given several nominations, leaving fewer this year for the Australian. In business reporting, for example, there were two nominations for Sky News and one for the Australian. The top gong is the Sir Keith Murdoch award for excellence in journalism, which will be handed out ton 27 October not by Rupert himself but by his global chief executive, Robert Thomson.

But the award that caught our eye was a new one, for achievements in opinion, commentary and provocation. An award for provocation? Look no further than Andrew Bolt, who is provocative around the clock on multiple outlets including columns in the Herald Sun, his popular blog, the radio and The Bolt Report on Sky News. The three nominees for the inaugural award are of course, Andrew Bolt, Paul Murray from Sky News and a third nominee who richly deserves a nod – Jill Poulsen from the NT News for her strong front page about marriage equality headlined “Do It Now”.

Beecher’s look

Crikey may have just lost its editor – as Cassidy Knowlton becomes the latest Crikey staffer to depart – but that hasn’t stopped it launching a 13-part series this week about the Australian waging war on its enemies. “Holy Wars: Australian journalism’s freak show: how a serious newspaper deals with its enemies” is the somewhat dramatic title. Perhaps because he has lost or laid off so many of his staff, Crikey’s publisher, Eric Beecher, is writing it himself with his media writer, Emily Watkins. Can’t wait to see how the Australian returns fire.

Vale Iain Shedden: ‘gentle, smart, wry’

The world of music and journalism is mourning the loss of the drummer and music writer Iain Shedden, who died suddenly on Monday after having treatment for the return of cancer. The 60-year-old was a drummer in the Saints before joining the Australian as a subeditor and graduating to music writer, where he shone for almost two decades.

Musicians including Kate Miller-Heidke, Paul Kelly and Neil Finn paid tribute to “Sheddy”, who was admired in both professions as a professional and a gentleman. “Iain Shedden was a passionate music fan with a thoughtful nature and forthright opinion,” Finn said. “He was a decent man and an independent and reliable critic, a valuable part of the music scene in Australia. I was relieved and flattered when he wrote nice things about my music, a little chastened by his occasional criticism. That’s the way it should be. A gentleman and an intelligent reviewer. It’s a sad day for music.”

Kelly wrote: “A gentle, smart, wry man. A sharp wit with a crinkly smile. An average tennis player like me so we had good battles. A big loss to us all. My sincere condolences to his family.” A funeral for Sheddy, who is survived by the film-maker Christine Nestel and their children, Molly and Conor, will be held at 3.30pm on Thursday at Marrickville Town Hall.