Ten’s MasterChef races past Thank God You’re Here as Seven’s Leckie health fears resurface

Ten’s MasterChef has seen off its biggest foe yet – trouncing Seven’s previously unassailable Thank God You’re Here in Wednesday’s TV ratings.  

Last night’s edition – in which the contestants catered for a wedding – racked up nearly 1.9m viewers, according to preliminary figures from OzTam. By comparison, Thank God You’re Here had just under 1.3m viewers.

The size of the turnaround is illustrated by the ratings when Thank God You’re Here debuted less than two months ago. On April 30, Thank God You’re Here had 1.7m metro viewers, while MasterChef had less than 1m.

The performance of MasterChef – stripped across six days per week – is dragging up ratings across the entire Ten schedule. In the last four weeks, Ten’s ratings have been up more than 10%, with Universal McCann boss Henry Tajer telling the Sydney Morning Herald today: “What’s interesting is Ten is seeing a multi-night comeback.”

Meanwhile, in the late afternoon ratings, Eddie McGuire’s Millionaire Hot Seat on Nine  – which has been stubbornly about 200,000 behind Seven’s Deal Or No Deal showed some signs of closing the gap. It rated 708,000 on Wednesday, while Deal Or No deal was on 827,000.

Last night’s overall ratings were a close run thing, with Seven on 28.9% and Ten on 28.3%. Nine was much further behind on 22.9%.

Ten also remains the most viewed network of the ratings week, with a share of 28.4% to Seven’s 26.7% and Nine’s 24.4%.

Meanwhile, the Socceroos’ exciting 2-1 victory over Japan did well for Fox Sports 1 with an average audience of 200,000 and a peak of nearly 400,000.

In a further issue for Seven, reports in today’s newspapers suggest that Seven’s charismatic boss David Leckie was unwell at a network event last night. According to Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, he sounded “tired but not emotional“, while the Sydney Morning Herald’s diary reports: “Leckie looked unwell, stumbled over his words then almost lost his balance leaving the stage, grabbing the lectern to compose himself”. Last year Leckie spent nearly a fortnight in an induced coma following a blood infection.

Wednesday night’s top rating shows:

1. MasterChef – Ten 1.9m
2. Seven News – Seven 1.6m
3. Today Tonight – Seven 1.4m
4. Criminal Minds – Seven 1.3m
5. Nine News – Nine 1.3m
6. Thank God You’re Here – Seven 1.3m 
7. Spicks and Specks – ABC 1.3m
8. A Current Affair – Nine 1.2m
9. Home and Away – Seven 1.1m
10. Two and a Half Men – Nine 1.1m

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 business David Leckie Eddie McGuire Fox Sports Henry Tajer Hot Seat MasterChef MasterChef Australia Media Nine Seven Socceroos sport Ten TV TV ratings Universal McCann Wednesday Who Wants to be a Millionnaire

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