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Masterchef to replace Big Brother

A local version of a BBC cooking format will replace Big Brother on TEN six nights a week for 10 weeks.

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First news from the TEN launch is trickling in….

Big Brother is to be replaced by a 10 week local version of a BBC series, MasterChef Australia.

FremantleMedia will produce the series to air six nights a week.

The show has seen a number of format changes in the UK but essentially involves amateurs cooking  including inventing a dish from scratch in 50 minutes, working a lunchtime shift at a busy restaurant, cooking a final meal of two courses, with ingredients of the contestants’ choice in one hour etc. It originally ran from 1990 to 2001 and was revived in 2005 with two judges.

Rush has also been approved for a second series.

Bondi Rescue is back.

Guerrilla Gardeners and Recruits are also announced.

More to come….

68 Responses

  1. Cooking shows don’t interest me in the slightest. I have watched Friends, BB, The Biggest Loser in the 7pm time slot, and was hoping TEN would come up with something interesting and better than Taken Out and Will and Grace. Masterchef is not it Back to ABC news for me.

  4. This is something of a surprise. As others have indicated, this type of show will certainly skew to a slightly older audience than normal for the timeslot and will also likely have a higher proportion of female than male viewers.

    It will be interesting to see if Ten hire contestents only in the younger age range to make it attractive to that audience or if they go with a diverse range of people.

    The critical issue will of course be hosting. They will need a host or hosts with a lot of charisma and fire to pull this together and will also need hosts who really know their stuff when it comes to the culinary world.

    It may be worth a watch, but I do fear that the audience has had its fill of cooking shows.

  5. Seven previously aired Master Chef Goes Large (Master Chef’s current incarnation) in the 3PM timeslot, where it finished up just two weeks ago.

    Assuming Ten will uses this current format, which is a tournament style cooking competition, it could probably work quite well.

  6. All I can say is that I’m stoked that Rush has picked up a second season. Everyone should get behind this fantastic homegrown show!! Replays of the aired episodes can be found on the ten website.

  8. Didn’t Ten do a 7pm Ready Steady Cook with celebrities that really bombed? I think it was just full of big brother drop outs…

    Though I didn’t mind Master Chef when 7 were showing it in the afternoons… needs a bit more pizazz… but could work.

  12. might work if people want to cook dinner at the same time as watching it but it doesn’t sound like there will be any letting you know in advance what they are doing tomorrow so people wouldn’t be able to get the ingredients in time, maybe if they record it. but yes 5 nights a week does seem pretty extreme and personally it doesn’t interest me.

  13. Masterchef sounds like good news – for my 58 year old Mum! She loves the UK version, so will no doubt like this news! But I tend to agree with CJM on this one – you never know what could happen; it could be a surprise success. I think it would have a similar audience to Biggest Loser, probably skewing to the older part of Ten’s target audience. So it may not take out the 16-39’s, but may grab a bigger portion of the latter half of the 18-49’s, perhaps stealing some of those viewers from Home and Away and leaving the younger ones for 2.5 men (if that’s still on) and Home and Away to fight over. This will be interesting….

  15. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ten will drop the demographic sooner than we think. By launching a program that caters outside their key demographic, it may get people seeing Ten in a new light in the leadup to 2010.

  17. You may be right, and Masterchef may flop, but I remember the same thing being said about Biggest Loser…who would have thought that show could be a success when played 6 days a week? You never know what’s going to happen. Seeing the success that NINE had with Ramsay at the beginning of this year proves that restaurant/cooking shows still have a following.

  18. Bloody Hell Ch10.. I thought you were serious about wanting to be competition again.. obviously not!. You will have a serious challenger next year in ratings.. it will be for 4TH with the ABC!

  19. lol, oh ten. The cooking fad is dead, no one watches Jamie, people even came to their senses with Ramsay. WTF makes ten think this will work? I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. Not exactly targeting their 16-39 demo either.

    But that pathetic move is almost counterbalanced with the fact Rush gets a second season, I guess 800k really is the new 1mill.

  22. Oh my god! It looks like a mix of every single cooking and restaurant themed show being put in a blender and then churning out this. I cannot believe Ten could think of anything better to replace BB than this!

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