Lisa Wilkinson and the Fordhams: Inside TV's controversial talent deal

Ben Fordham – the brother of Lisa Wilkinson’s manager Nick Fordham – has weighed in on one of the hottest stories of the year: Wilkinson’s jump to Ten.

“Sometimes a change is not the worst thing in the world. You know?,” Ben Fordham told James Manning on a recent Mediaweek podcast.

“It’s going to be a great change for Lisa, because she’s not waking up a 3am in the morning any more, she’s now doing primetime and she’s going to have a chance to show off some of her skills in other areas.

“And it’s not a bad thing for Channel 9 or the Today show either.”

Nick Fordham is the CEO of The Fordham Company, a role which sees him managing the likes of Wilkinson, her husband Peter FitzSimons, Today show’s Sylvia Jeffreys and many others.

Ben – who is signed with Nine – revealed that he still talks “a lot” of shop with his brother. “We’re brothers, and we’re best mates,” he said. “We bounce a lot of things off each other.”

Speaking on the “challenging week” that was the Lisa Wilkinson media circus, Ben continued, “For 48 hours or so there, my brother Nick was probably not the most popular person around Channel 9.”

However, after running into Nine CEO Hugh Marks “the day after all that madness went down”, it was clear that, for both Nine and Nick Fordham, it would soon be business as usual, with no bad blood.

“Hugh’s not an overly emotional kind of bloke,” said Ben. “He’s all just about getting business done…

“Nine has to deal with him [Nick Fordham] again, and he has to deal with them, and they’ll all get on and they’ll all move on. Things move on pretty quickly in this business.”