MasterChef turns Monday night TV ratings into a three-way battle

The popularity of Ten’s MasterChef Australia – which recorded its best weekday ratings yet on Monday night – is starting to raise a new question for the TV network: how to persuade the audience to stick around afterwards?  

Last night’s show rated an audience of well over 1.4m for Ten, according to preliminary figures from OzTam. This represented a 38.1% share for the 7pm timeslot.

But the following show, Recruits, average less than 1.2m, and the audience fell away again to just over a million for Good News Week, meaning that more than 40% of MasterChef’s audience was gone within an hour of the show ending.

In part, the viewers had moved across to Nine, where Sea Patrol’s new run remains strong, pulling in nearly 1.4m viewers. Earlier in the night, Kings Cross shooting hoaxer Clare Werbeloff’s brief appearance on Nine’s A Current Affair also brought in around 1.4m viewers.

But the night was narrowly won by Seven, mainly driven by its strong news and current affairs lineup.

Monday’s share: Seven 26.8%; Nine 26.5%, Ten 23.9%; ABC 16.9%; SBS 6%

Monday’s most-watched shows:

1. Seven News – Seven 1.832
2. Today Tonight – Seven 1.619
3. MasterChef – Ten 1.443
4. A Current Affair – Nine 1.405
5. Sea Patrol – Nine 1.385
6. Nine News – Nine 1.364
7. Two and a Half Men 7:30pm – Nine 1.291
8. Home and Away – Seven 1.233
9. Two and a Half Men 7:00pm – Nine 1.227
10. Desperate Housewives – Seven 1.181
11. Recruits – Ten 1.162
12. Scrubs – Seven 1.092
13. ABC News – ABC 1.076
14. Missing Pieces – Nine 1.052
15. Good News Week – Ten 1.030

Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.

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topics A Current Affair business Clare Werbeloff Good News Week MasterChef Media Nine OzTam ratings recruits Sea Patrol Seven Ten TV

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