OpinionMay 22, 2026 — 5:00amIn this week’s On Background, Lisa Wilkinson goes another round against her former employers at Ten, Bruce McWilliam casts a big shadow at his old stomping ground, and Jacinta Allan makes a personal speech to a Murdoch bash.Wilkinson vs Ten. Will it ever end?Lisa Wilkinson, remember her? Despite the fact that the former Cleo editor and breakfast TV doyenne hasn’t been on television consistently for a few years, she is still, believe it or not, locked in dispute with Network 10 over legal fees.Those are the fees Wilkinson incurred defending Bruce Lehrmann’s disastrous defamation proceedings after her Logie-winning interview with Brittany Higgins on Ten’s The Project in 2021. It was during that interview that Higgins publicly accused Lehrmann of rape in 2019 (while not actually naming him at the time).Lisa Wilkinson spent plenty of time in the courts after Bruce Lehrmann sued Network Ten over her interview with Brittany Higgins.Wolter PeetersLehrmann – who has always denied raping Higgins – infamously lost his case against Wilkinson and Ten, with Justice Michael Lee saying Lehrmann was foolish to “go back for his hat” after his criminal trial on the same allegations was aborted due to juror misconduct.Amid that trial, Wilkinson was off-air at Ten and briefed her own lawyers to make sure her interests were represented. She accused Ten of failing to support her after she read a speech at the Logies paying tribute to Higgins, which Ten had approved, that caused Lehrmann’s criminal trial to be delayed.Ten was ordered to pay Wilkinson $1.15 million for her legal costs more than 15 months ago. But, On Background has learned, the station is yet to pay out the full costs, which has led to further protracted litigation. Just days ago, the parties finally settled on payment of the first tranche of legal fees, relating to the cross-claim Wilkinson lodged against Ten in 2023 over the payment of $700,000 in legal costs in the defamation case.It isn’t the only reason Wilkinson is back in the news. Part of her recent book tour has included a reunion on her former show, Today on Channel Nine, alongside her former co-host Karl Stefanovic.Today host Sarah Abo is going on maternity leave in September and Stefanovic’s future beyond this year is up in the air. Could we see Karl and Lisa reunited on Nine’s morning show for the final months of the year in hopes of making up ground to Seven’s Sunrise?“I’m remarkably free these days!” Wilkinson posted on Instagram recently in response to a throwback photo of her and Karl together. Alas, the emojis that followed made clear she was joking about the prospect.Ten and Wilkinson declined to comment.New name, who dis?One way or another, Australia will be saying goodbye to one of its historic media companies as the civil war between the unhappily married Seven West Media and Southern Cross Media nears its end.The company is set to be renamed Seven Media Group, barring any major protests from investors. New chief executive Rohan Lund is convening the company’s top executives on Friday morning in Sydney for the company’s own mini-conference.Bruce McWilliam is now a major player at Southern Cross (or Seven?).Peter RaeLooming over the event is Bruce McWilliam, the texting enthusiast who has worked as a media Svengali for each of the industry’s most famous local moguls: the two Kerrys (Packer and Stokes) and Rupert (there’s only one).If McWilliam is able to find more shares to buy up, he could soon challenge Stokes as the company’s top shareholder. It will cost him $28.7 million at Thursday’s market price to buy another 10.5 per cent, which would put him on par with the 20 per cent that Stokes holds.There has been plenty of speculation since McWilliam first shot up the register last month over whether he is in league with Stokes. But friends of McWilliam say that as a former executive, who has no shortage of cash thanks to his property dealings, he simply wasn’t a fan of the audio-led direction Southern Cross’ top brass were taking the company following the merger.McWilliam has strong views on the direction the company needs to take, they said, that being a focus on television and publishing, with audio relegated to second (or should that be third?) place.“Bruce doesn’t suffer fools, so everyone will need to be on their game,” the person said.A lesson in diplomacyTo gauge the lasting power of the Murdochs in Australia, you only had to be standing outside the Victorian state library on Saturday night as On Background was.As Australia’s rich and powerful filtered in through the public entrance to the Library, the real movers and shakers snuck in the back door. That included Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, and who else, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his wife Jodie Haydon.Sarah Murdoch makes small talk at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute gala.Luis Enrique AscuiErica Packer, James Packer’s former wife, who is also on the global advisory board of the Institute, was in the room, as was former governor-general Quentin Bryce and a big chunk of Labor’s Victorian frontbench.But for all the external bigwigs at hand, it’s important to keep things in the family, with the event’s good works sponsored by Nova (owned by Lachlan Murdoch), Vogue (published by News Corp) and Fox (controlled by the Murdochs).During his keynote speech as the guest of honour, Albanese announced $5 million in federal funding for the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, which is devoted to finding new treatments for diseases afflicting young people. “It’s about honouring the 40-year legacy of the institute,” Albanese told the room.Days before the event, an editorial from local paper the Herald Sun called the Albanese government’s budget a “betrayal” of the aspirational Australian. Albanese was mostly spared, to be fair, with most of the critique heading Comrade Jim’s way, but never let it be said the PM is afraid to go into unfriendly territory.Those in the room said it was state premier Jacinta Allan who made the biggest impression of the night, despite the event being full of Herald Sun types whose articles tend to give a rather dim view of her government. Allan pledged $2 million to the institute, but it was her personal remarks that carried real weight when she spoke about her daughter Peggy, who spent months in intensive care in Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital as a baby.SBS says goodbye on the cheapNot only does SBS get a fraction of the government funding the ABC nets, but when they send off their managing director, they do it with a fraction of the budget.The one-hour internal event held at SBS HQ in Artarmon last year to see off James Taylor was held at a grand total of $6,384. This included light catering for morning tea, live captioning of the livestream, photography and travel costs for then-acting chair Christine Zeitz. The event itself was “modest in scale and cost”, an SBS briefing document released through Freedom of Information (FOI) laws said.It was revealed in December that Aunty, on the other hand, spent $45,000 to farewell David Anderson last year after 36 years at the broadcaster, at a cost of $1,250 per year of service. Taylor’s time at SBS was nothing to sniff at, spending nearly 14 years at the place. That works out to just $473 per year of tenure.Well done SBS. Spending the public’s dollars frugally!Media Watching the purseWhile we’re on the subject of spending the public’s cash, separate FOI documents reveal the total cost of producing one of the ABC’s top rating shows, Media Watch. Airing for 15 minutes each Monday night, an episode costs a grand total of $4,440.52 not including salaries. Not bad for a show that this week netted an average audience of 544,000 viewers.ABC head honcho Hugh Marks revealed on ABC Melbourne on Thursday morning that the broadcaster paid Deloitte $200,000 to produce a report showing the economic impact their productions have on the local economy. The report found that figure to be $772 million in the three years from July 2022 to June 2025.Marks said the report didn’t necessarily help him decide what he plans on cutting after revealing last week that some legacy shows may be on the chopping block in the future. But at such a low cost, surely Media Watch has secured its place.The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.From our partners