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Penultimate Masterchef episode draws 742,000 metro viewers in wake of George Calombaris scandal

The second last episode of Ten’s Masterchef has drawn 742,000 metro viewers ahead of the grand finale tonight.

It was a jump on last Monday night’s 667,000 metro viewers, and comes as there is increased scrutiny on judge George Calombaris in the wake of his wages scandal. There have been calls for Calombaris to be removed from the show, but Ten is standing by him.

Masterchef topped the 16 to 39s demographic, but was beaten in the 18 to 49s and 25 to 54s by Australian Ninja Warrior on Nine.

Overall, Ninja had 942,000 viewers, up from 923,000 last week.  The show, which had its second semi-final heat last night but won’t air the grand finale till next week, has had a strong season, regularly nearing 1m metro viewers.

House Rules, which also airs its final episode tonight but began the final challenge last night, drew 644,000 viewers. Seven also held the most-watched show overall for the night, with 1.12m tuning in for Seven News’ first half. It was also a strong night for Home and Away with 678,000 viewers tuning in.

Later on in the evening on Ten, Have You Been Paying Attention? saw 668,000 tune in and nabbed the second most-watched spot in both the 18-49s and 25-54s.

Over on ABC, the most-watched show was ABC News with 647,000 followed by Back Roads on 645,000.

Last night, Sky News aired the first part of its Lawyer X documentary, Lawyer X: The Untold Story. It was the most-watched program on subscription television, drawing 101,000 viewers. The show, which was hosted by new recruit Peter Stefanovic, is part of a series of new documentaries and programming choices by Sky News, including some political documentaries which aired earlier this year. 

In metro audiences 25-54, Nine took the biggest audience share, holding 24.2%, while Ten took the top spot in metro audiences 16-39 with a 24.3% share.

Australian Ninja Warrior handed Nine the win on Monday night. The primary channel held an overall audience share of 22.5%, followed by Seven on 19.2%, Ten with 15.7%, and ABC on 13.1%. At a network level, the story was the same, Nine held an overall share of 29.2%, followed by Seven on 27.3%, Ten with 20.7% and ABC on 16.6%.

7Mate was the most-watched multi-channel with an audience share of 3.8%.

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