Masterchef Ratings Fall Again (Old Story)

Channel Ten's reality cooking show fails to arrest the ratings slide. It dropped thirty thousand viewers on its second night, 60,000 down by Wednesday.

Nearly more people appeared on the show than watched it.

Channel Ten's last gasp hope for some ratings failed on Monday night when their flagship reality TV show, Masterchef, debuted at a decidedly modest 10th position.

Channel Ten have been on their last legs for a while now, financially, and this must have come as a bitter blow for Ten.

Although none at the station will admit it, the execs over there were secretly hoping that MC would debut at number one, and ease the strain in one night.

However, the evening's viewing was won by Channel Nine's RTV show, The Voice, with 1.5 million viewers.

Masterchef got 874,000.

However hopes for a build in viewership were dashed the next night when the viewing figures dropped by thirty thousand, down to 847,000.

The next night, Wednesday, 60,000 viewers deserted the show.

This failure follows hard on the heels of a series of ratings failures for ten.

Their dance RTV show, So You Think You Can Dance was initially hoped to provide some ratings relief for Ten, however so badly did this show fail, that it had to be moved from the fight ground of Sunday night to the easier Thursday.

However, even here SYTYCD failed.

On the last night it appeared on our screens it listed 18th out of 20 in the ratings, with a decidedly meager 446,000 viewers.

Allied with this was a series of other failures with even popular shows.

The figures for the last week for ten, showing their highest rating programs, are as such.

Sunday, Modern Family, 14th out of 20, 546,000 viewers.

Saturday, News, 12th out of 20, 339,000 viewers.

Friday, News, 14th out of 20, 557,000 viewers.

Thursday, News, 18th out of 20, 582,000 viewers.

Wednesday, News, 17th out of 20, 577,000 viewers.

Also, this night saw the penultimate episode of Puberty Blues with marquee player Claudia Karvan, this bombed even worse, 19th out of 20, with 529,000 viewers.

Tuesday, News, 19th out of 20, 661,000 viewers.

Monday, News, 16th out of 20, 648,000 viewers.

All of this has started to show with the station using increasingly desperate tactics to try to inflate their ratings.

Anyone in advertising will tell you that if a network looks desperate, then everyone can see that, and advertising revenue will drop alarmingly.

Channel Ten therefore began a cluster-bomb carpeting of other shows with promos for Masterchef.

This tactic was used with their broadcast of the Sochi Winter Olympics.

Every other show on Ten at the time had a promo for Sochi in the corner of the screen.

Now this did work, and Sochi was the last ratings success for Ten.

Sochi was indeed the last time that Ten made it to number one in the ratings figures.

However, the difference is that broadcasting any national sport in Australia will win you the ratings.

Whether it is the Kangaroos in Rugby League, or the Socceroos in the world cup, national sports, particularly if Australia wins are a sure-fire winner.

But the problem for Ten was that they didn't "make" that show.

The athletes made the show.

So it didn't have any long term carry over for Ten with viewer popularity.

As soon as the Olympic flag was taken down over the ski slopes at Sochi.

Viewers changed channel em masse.

What's more it cost Ten a fortune, and this then became part of their financial burden, and in April they posted a $12.9 million dollar loss for their half-yearly earnings.

So they were hoping for great things from Masterchef, but didn't get it.

What's more, the promo-in-the-corner-of-the-screen tactic, so successful for Sochi, didn't work for MasterChef.

It only seemed to antagonise loyal viewers of other shows, who began switching those shows off rather than be annoyed by this constant begging you to watch Masterchef.

This was best shown by the drop in viewers for Modern Family, mentioned above.

Mod Fam is normally a certain winner for Ten, but even the new episode on Sunday last rated 14th out of 20.

One can't help wondering if the watchers of this show found those promos too annoying for words and switched off.

So what does the future hold for Ten?

Well, if Masterchef continues tor return modest figures then financial insolvency will dog their footsteps.

Harrison Polites in the Business Spectator indicates that Ten's brand may be just so toxic with younger, Gen Y and Z viewers, that recovery is unlikely.

This would bring the always in the background merger with MCN-Fox to the fore once again.

This will be an abject failure for Channel Ten head Hamish McLennan, himself the latest of many people Ten have tried at the top to turn the ratings around.

One thing Ten could try is to remove the promos for Masterchef from the screens during other programs.

It just alerts anyone watching to how desperate the station is, and the very viewers Ten are trying to pick up sense this immediately and switch off, or rather, over to another non-desperate channel.

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