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In 2010 a Leaders’ Debate avoided clashing with MasterChef….

Updated: “I can understand the fascination with cooking & eating," PM Julia Gillard said when a debate had to avoid clashing with MasterChef.

Thanks to one reader with an excellent recall, here’s what Prime Minister Julia Gillard said when a Leaders’ Debate with Tony Abbott was proposed to run against the MasterChef finale back in 2010.

“I can understand the fascination with cooking and eating, so I know many Australians will watch that show, but I think Australians still pay some regard to the debate and to the election campaign and what’s said in it,” she said.

In the end the Debate had to settle for a 6:30pm start because MasterChef was locked down for 7:30.

MasterChef blitzed the night at 3.96m viewers, while the debate on Seven pulled 1.24m.

A lot has changed in TV since then.

Updated: Last night the Leaders’ Debate drew 678,000 on ABC / ABC News and MasterChef was 664,000.

Footnote: In 2013 a debate on ABC between Rudd and Abbott did win the battle at 708,000 to MasterChef‘s 699,000.

5 Responses

    1. I have updated to add in ABC News numbers which pushes Debate to 678,000 last night. For your argument we would need to add BVOD and Timeshifted for MasterChef too (and I have better things to do to be honest), but not standard to include STV.

  1. Masterchef seems extremely tiresome now with all of the same old cliches being repeated year in and year out by the same old faces. I don’t even watch the show and I find the inconsequential small-talk to be absolutely unbearable. “You’ve done so well to make it this far.” “The dream isn’t over. It’s only beginning”. “The journey doesn’t end here.” “You’re going home tonight, but you should be proud of everything you’ve achieved.” Yada, yada, yada. My God, I don’t have patience for this kind of meaningless speech in my day-to-day life and the judges parrot these inane platitudes every bloody year to pad out the already excessive running time.

    No wonder the ratings have dropped so dramatically. The food is great and all, but it is punctuated with what could easily have been interchangeable with archive footage from previous seasons and no-one would know the difference.

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