"Mate, Lisa's good," the Channel Nine executive told me, "but Karl is the real star of Today."

This opinion was proffered several years ago, at a boozy network function. I laughed, assuming it was a joke. It wasn't. On the other side of the room, Wilkinson sipped champagne, unaware she was being talked about.

Since then, Nine has shown a curious under-appreciation of its popular host. Now, it has confirmed this by allowing her to walk. With Wilkinson signed to rival network Ten - dropping the bombshell on Monday night - her ex-bosses will be forced to re-examine their decision.

Despite several months of negotiations, Nine refused to pay her as much as co-anchor Karl Stefanovic. The reason: Stefanovic has other roles as a presenter on 60 Minutes and host of successful prime time show This Time Next Year.

But Wilkinson also had prime time ambitions, and was just as keen to expand her role. When Stefanovic took breaks from Today - to film his reality program and deal with the end of his marriage - Wilkinson soldiered on.

It's difficult to see why she's worth less than her male counterpart. And in fact, she isn't.

Fairfax Media understands she will earn more at Ten than Stefanovic at Nine. Some reports claim this will make her the top-paid female host on Australian TV - but she could well become the top-paid person, male or female. (Networks never reveal their stars' salaries, but multiple sources back this up.)

On Monday, Nine decided to move on Wilkinson. Unfortunately for them, so did Ten. Recognising her talent and popularity, it appointed her co-host of The Project and The Sunday Project, where she will join Waleed Aly, Peter Helliar and Carrie Bickmore. (Her package is rumoured to be bigger than Aly's, who is one of Ten's best-paid stars.) The program films in Sydney on weekends and Melbourne on weekdays. It is believed Wilkinson will continue living in Sydney.

This is just the beginning. Although CBS is yet to finalise its purchase of Ten, the American network has already taken a strong interest in programming.

Sources say the company was astounded to learn Wilkinson was ripe for poaching. Impressed by her interviews and editorials on Today - especially her piece about Fifty Shades of Grey and domestic violence, which went viral - CBS backed Ten's decision.

This appears to have caught Nine off guard.

In previous years, the network played hardball in its negotiations with Wilkinson. It knew there weren't many programs that held similar appeal to her - and TV no longer pays the lavish salaries of yore. In other words, her options were limited.

Nine's mistake may have been to underestimate Ten (which is still in receivership, to be fair).

Its handling of her departure, meanwhile, has left many scratching their heads. Nine's announcement, late on Monday, has ensured extensive media coverage this week. Her not returning to farewell viewers comes off as needlessly punitive. But most damning is Nine's declaration it will "take the Today show in a different direction, although we're not sure yet what that direction will be".

Some in the industry see this as a sign the network is scrambling.

The simple fact is that it's hard to find good breakfast hosts. Of course, no one knows this better than Nine. In 2005, it cycled through various on-air partners for Stefanovic, watching in dismay as Sunrise maintained its dominance.

Only when Wilkinson joined, in 2007, did ratings make a solid improvement. From trailing by 160,000 metropolitan viewers, the pair steadily grew their audience. In 2016, they claimed the most weekly victories in the five major cities. It was a stunning turnaround for a program many had written off a decade earlier.

This should have been sufficient proof of Wilkinson's value. And it was - to rival media outlets, anyway. A few years ago, Wilkinson was offered a job in New York, but declined because her children were in high school.

Since her success in women's magazines, overseeing huge circulation increases on Dolly and Cleo, she's been in demand.

In the 1990s, she made her broadcasting debut by filling in for her husband, Peter FitzSimons, on Doug Mulray's radio show. As FitzSimons cheerfully admitted in the past, "She was much better than I was." Management agreed, giving her a contract.

Next, she became a regular panellist on talk show Beauty and the Beast, which aired on Foxtel and Ten. Various roles with Seven followed, including a stint on Weekend Sunrise.

But it was her 11 years with Today that made her a household name - and put her on the radar of American media companies.

Wilkinson may be off to the US sooner than she expected. She is unlikely to live there, but is tipped to score major Hollywood interviews. Over the coming months, Ten will announce other roles for her.

The irony is that she was happy to stay put. Even though she had been in discussions with Ten, nothing was signed. But when Nine made its announcement on Monday, Ten pounced. The news has drawn a positive response on social media, while Nine is contending with the #IBreakUpWithToday hashtag; a play on its "I wake up with Today" promotion.

Not surprisingly, Wilkinson celebrated by throwing a party at her Sydney home. Guests say she was elated, and is eager to do lengthier interviews and opinion segments on Ten.

In commercial TV, breakfast anchor jobs are a glittering prize because their remit is so broad: an interview with the prime minister one day, a chat with a celebrity the next, then live coverage of a natural disaster.

Wilkinson appears to have pulled off the impossible. At Ten, she'll get to do all this and more - with a pay rise to boot.

Sydney Morning Herald