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Family Food Fight under review

"We’re disappointed. It’s a show we really believe in," says Nine exec Adrian Swift.

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Family Food Fight will award $100,000 tonight to either the Giles or Tartaglia families, but the show’s future is under review by Nine following low ratings.

Since premiering in late October the show has struggled to rise above 500,000 viewers, prompting Nine to trim it from 3 to 2 nights a week. That led to the finale screening tonight, outside of official ratings survey.

Nine’s Head of Content, Production and Development, Adrian Swift, told TV Tonight, “We’re disappointed. It’s a show we really believe in, and that’s why we left it in the schedule.

“It’s been picked up all around the show. It’s an Australian format that’s been picked up by Channel 4 in the UK, ABC in the US, and all over Europe.”

Indeed the Endemol Shine / Nine developed format recently secured a deal in Denmark. A Latino edition is currently airing in Argentina. Yet in its country of origin, the show has struggled to find an audience.

“Coming off a long season of The Block I think people were a little bit reticent to re-engage with another long-running Reality show,” Swift suggested.

This year also saw tweaks to the format, including reducing the families from 4 to 2 team members. But wasn’t that the show’s point of difference?

“There’s some truth in that, but we had a lot of audience feedback,” says Swift. “They couldn’t lock onto the characters, and they couldn’t quite define their relationships.

“So it was much easier for the relationships to play out with 2. While The Block has competition between teams, Family Food Fight is more about the dynamic and the jeopardy within each of the teams. So it’s much easier to do that with 2 people.

“But it hasn’t worked as well as we’d hoped.”

Despite being listed on Nine’s recent Upfronts, the show is now under review for 2019.

“We haven’t made a decision yet, but we’d have to be reviewing it. Let’s be serious,” Swift agrees.

“I think you would have to say, based on the numbers, it is one of those things we would think about.”

14 Responses

  1. Probably turned off some viewers the first week this season after not judging that dish that was 15 seconds late to be plated up, when clearly there would be nerves from the contestants in the early episodes. Not exactly the direction to warm viewers and not the best advertisement when Gogglebox sampled it.

  4. Would I be right by thinking, the reason Nine haven’t come out earlier with a more definitive “we’ll axe it” and have been fairly quiet, is because the average audience overnight (let alone PVR playback and BVOD) has been very consistent, clearly a very loyal following? Over 400k. Even if that isn’t quite an acceptable number. But compared to many other shows, it kind of doesn’t seem to bad.

    Will be very interesting how Nine measure / model for its future, if any. But I agree, Nine need to be very careful and take time.

    Disclaimer: I am not an MKR or FFF viewer, as one food reality is by far enough for one person annually, MasterChef since day dot (remembering it started a year before MKR).

  5. Was disappointed with this season I stopped watching. Badly cast, little cooking skills, bitchiness, no comradery. It doesn’t need to be MKR or Masterchef. They could have cut back to 3 people, not 2. I understand the bitchiness can drive ratings but all teams didn’t have any positive words. Nothing wrong with Moran, Tom Parker Bowles has great food knowledge but is he needed? Hayden Quinn could have been used as a mentor in the kitchen while the judges commented.

  6. Sophie Monk as host, Moran steps back as judge with a bit of a mix up with the judges. A new cooking stage or something and a new element or twist to the show that should make a change and have a different feel to the show.

  9. I liked the family 4 format better. The eliminations should be marked over the 2 nights ,to stop good people getting eliminated by one mistake. The most disappointing thing this season , was ” I’ve never cooked/touched/eaten that in my life’. Sure pick different nationalities, but ones that can actually cook anything and never repeat themselves, but good at their own cuisine. Not, one pot wonders. Boring.
    Also, invest in a clock you can read.

  10. From memory it rated pretty good last year. People liked that the teams were nice to each other. But this year they trimmed it down to 2 people in each family & there was more nastiness. The things that people liked last year weren’t there this year.

  11. Well I actually enjoy it. It’s obviously never going to be the best thing on TV… but it’s very light entertainment that I don’t have to think about. I found it baffling that they trimmed it to two per team… are viewers that stupid or lazy that they couldn’t differentiate between 4 ppl per team?

    I am curious as to what you think of the show David? Have u been watching? What are ur thoughts?

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