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Recipe to reheat MasterChef

13 seasons on, 10 needs to cut back on the commitment required of viewers. Here are some other ideas.

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Much has been said about the current season of MasterChef Australia, quite a bit which is focussed on ratings rather than the content itself.

They are certainly down on 2020, which frequently averaged above 900,000 -but the context overlooks that during a pandemic lockdown it was also comfort TV. There were new judges and returning Back to Win favourites.

If we look at 2019, the last with Matt Preston, Gary Mehigan & George Calombaris, numbers were frequently around 650,000 metro viewers.

This year’s cast is serving up some eye-watering dishes that promise much is to come for those who indulge.

No question too, 10 has serious competition from Lego Masters and Big Brother, all three produced by Endemol Shine Australia.

Yet in its 13th season there are also signs of complacency mostly which reside with 10. All TV has to keep adapting to stay one step ahead of the audience.

Here are some suggestions for 2022…

Season length: Last year’s show was a whopping 15 Weeks, and the year before 14 Weeks. It’s too much commitment for time-poor viewers. Cut to a 6 week season (and yes I realise that means 10 will have to commission a replacement show).

Episode length: 70 minutes maximum, including ads. Goodbye 90+ minutes. How many times do we need to see contestants in a meltdown because they forgot to turn on the oven?

4 episodes a week: Sunday – Wednesday only please.

No audition episodes: Open with the cast. Why do I need to see people eliminated when they don’t even make the cut?

Top 24: Reduce to 20 then have more double eliminations.

No MasterClass, Junior or Celebrity editions: Keep the format pure, once a year. Don’t dilute the brand with spin-offs.

Bring back public challenges: I realise these are absent due to COVID, but they are missed. Pop-ups, food vans, restaurant takeovers all offer great variety. Food delivery has boomed in the pandemic, and no reason it can’t feature.

Travel: See above.

Keep the food aspirational: Resist how-to home cooking. We have SBS Food for that. MasterChef is about immaculate dishes and the “wow” factor. I don’t expect to be able to replicate it. That’s why the show is called MasterChef.

Mystery Boxes every Sunday: Still a great way to start a new week. And I miss a Mystery Box winner having an advantage by choosing an ingredient everybody must cook with (admittedly tricky if we are trimming episode length).

Later premiere: I would hold the season until winter, not autumn, when viewing is traditionally higher and the idea of yummy, warming dishes has greater impact.

Kitchen Makeover: The set is grand and iconic, but when was the last time it had a makeover? What else could it offer?

What’s worth keeping: New judges, Melissa Leong in particular. Diverse cooks with jaw-dropping skills. Emotion, authenticity, imagination, spontaneity, camaraderie. Dessert Week (yum). Team Challenges. Immunity. Guests and alumni (I don’t suppose Katy Perry wants seconds?).

I still have faith we are in for some drama, emotion and delish dishes this year (and a lift in ratings) but what are your ideas for the future?

44 Responses

  2. I agree, just put in the top 24 without auditions.
    The team challenges when they go to locations is something we have missed.
    Less ads would be great, you can predict when they will happen and I see they do travel to the NT which will be great.
    Also get fresh chefs in to do a challenge. Maybe ones we don’t know a lot about yet.
    I’m still enjoying it though.

  3. All the reality shows are like this though, having to commit to 1 & 1/2 hours of Big Brother 3 times a week has been tough, but i feel this years season is worth it, so far that is, i may tire of it later on although its a ‘quick’ season that’s not going to drag on for months. ‘I’m a Celebrity…’ was also a big commitment with no real pay off at the end, its been like that the last few years, the fanfare was barely there, i can’t even remember who won tbh. Probably an exception maybe Lego Masters, depending on how into it a viewer is, i watch for the creations, not really caring about who ‘wins’ as such & maybe thats why its rating so well.

  4. Not sure the lockdowns should be looked at as something that inflated the 2020 Masterchef numbers. There were plenty of long running shows on at the same time that didn’t see the same boost in ratings.
    MKR comes to mind.

    If Masterchef can sustain 500,000 viewers across 60 episodes, I think it’s still a big win.

  6. I used to love MasterChef but can’t get interested I the current season. I am tired of watching drawn-out, cheap, formulaic television that assumes I can’t remember what happened over a two minute commercial break. I don’t need to be told when to get excited and please, edit the clips in order because we can tell when the chronology changes.
    Thank goodness for Lego Masters for breaking the mould.

  7. Isn’t Masterchef usually in T3? Was only bought forward because they couldn’t start filming Survivor.
    But yes- the length of the episodes is too much, but I think 6 weeks is too short- maybe splitt the diff & make it 10.

  8. How long were episodes in the first series compared to now?

    To be fair to Ten most of their shows run for 6-8 weeks and there should probably be room for one series a year which runs a bit longer. Trouble is when every network is basically doing the fine and you essentially have to pick one network and stick with it for 3-4 months then it quickly becomes tiresome. A more varied weekly schedule with shows like Masterchef limited to 2 nights a week (3 at most) would probably be better than it airing 4-5 nights a week for a shorter period.

    The increasingly long episodes of Australian reality shows though do the series no favour – I suspect many now have daily episodes as long as their finales used to be.

    Have to credit Masterchef Australia though for it’s success – it seemed a really odd choice to replace Big Brother with back in 2009, but they’ve got 13 series out of it…

  9. I’ll add – please stop telling us it’s the “best cooks” or “best food” Ever. No, it’s not. Just stop it.

    I enjoy the show but yes, there’s too much of it. And goes for too long the nights it is on, I have other things to do.

  10. These shows make the same mistakes time and time again. Episodes and seasons too long. Viewer fatigue. Endless recaps and padding. Switching programming. Not starting or ending on time.

    Is it any wonder people are switching off FTA in droves? I don’t know why when a network think they have a good show they ram as much of it down viewers throats as they possibly can. Why not keep something short, sharp and easy to watch??

    1. thats where a pvr comes in handy, always with an extra 10 minutes added to the timer for the end of the show in case it runs over time, but yeah casual viewers will probably just switch off and not bother.

  12. I’m a big Masterchef fan & watch every season – but sadly not this year.
    The last couple of weeks have been hectic, moving house etc – my IQ was recording them but at 8 or so episodes & no time to watch them all, I gave up.
    There’s just too much commitment each week for the viewer, it’s overkill.
    I’ll be happy with just one or two episodes a week to be honest.
    Also why can’t shows these days stick to a commercial hour? It’s beyond annoying.

  13. Agree with a lot of the suggestions, particularly the length of episodes needing to be shorter. However, I don’t like the idea of a 6 week season. That’s too short but 15 weeks is definitely overkill. 10-12 weeks I think would be the sweet spot. The judges are fab though so I’d still like to see the show succeed.

  14. I still love it. But they need to bring back master-class. I also think the episodes are too long and mystery box night on Sunday was better. I love the new judges. Celebrity week didn’t really work so well this year with the guests being virtual. A virtual master-class would have been a treat… but we really didn’t get this either. I hope that they have some home grown celebrities. We’ve yet to have Mark Olive be a guest on any season. He’s brilliant. Having guest talent to compete against was always fun. Usually, the length of eps drops after week 2 or 3.

    1. I can see it already ,10 will want everyone to ignore David Knox’s suggestions and also his followers we don’t need a bunch of keyboard warriors telling us how to run our average rating show.

  17. I’ve got to admit they could lose Jock Zonfrillo. Both Andy and Melissa have worked well, not sure what it is but Zonfrillo’s catch cry screaming ‘give it up for…….’ grates. The other side of this is these are not ‘average’ home cooks, they are amazing at what they do but no longer ‘average’

  18. I agree with most of your ideas…definitely needs to shorten episodes and bring back more of the travel/public episodes, where they can do them safely.

    I do enjoy Masterclasses though, especially if they bring back some good guests/alumni from the earlier episodes of the week…

    I can still deal with five nights, although I agree with SnideAsides that it needs to return to the old weekly schedule of mystery box challenges, pressure tests, immunity, team challenges and eliminations at the end of the week — recent episodes seem to have no structure, as an audience we’re unsure what they have to look forward to.

  19. Junior MC ended in November, promos for the new season started in February. Not enough down time for such a huge commitment. Did ten forget that they almost killed the show that way in 2012. I read that Mc is running right up until the olympics in July?? that’s way too much life to give up.

    To rectify it they should give it a mid-winter premiere next year and give the brand a complete rest between seasons.

  21. A good article David and some good points ,do you know if they have already started asking for contestants next year , but the big question is will Viacom/Cbs commit to changes let alone a new show.

  22. The problem with all free to air shows is the abundance of shows and the waysnin which we, the public, can view programs these days. There is FTA Multi-Channel, On demand, Streaming, You Tube, Digital, etc all diluting viewers. Then there are other activities we do to reduce viewing habits eg online chatting, online shopping, online viewing, music, etc, etc. Personally l feel all FTA need to get back to shows running 60 mins or alternatively run them over 2 nights of 60mins. The good thing about streaming services is they run true to advertised schedules.

  23. Maybe look at the way Masterchef UK is done, whether it will work in Australia unsure but we and our friends prefer it over Oz version which we haven’t watched for a few seasons mainly because of the padded out overlong episodes

  24. All really good suggestions here, David. But, the question must be asked, is it too late to rescue this show? At 13 seasons, it was bound to give some viewers fatigue (this one included!). 10 really need to look for a new hit and stop hingeing their entire schedule on MasterChef saving the day year after year.

  25. They’ve really messed up by moving the weekly scheduling around last year and this year. I get that last year it was to keep the returning players on their toes, but it’s really hard to justify watching all week when the last two episodes each week are filler to decide which one person you don’t know enough to care about yet is going to sit out of Sunday’s challenge.

    I mostly just want them to be much, much stricter on people doing the same thing every challenge. It’s so boring watching people whip out the ice cream maker and the hibachi every chance they get, and to watch people like Reynold present the same few repetitive elements a different way every episode.

    1. It’s not just Masterchef….all shows need to take note of these ideas.

      – If you’re going to strip a show, no more than 60min per night.

      – Back stories: enough already. Everyone’s been through some hardship and/or is following their dream by being on the show.

      – Use multis/BVOD better. Instead of just broadcasting “encores”, package up exclusive content to mutlichannel and/or BVOD. The UK does this well.

      1. “– Back stories: enough already. Everyone’s been through some hardship and/or is following their dream by being on the show.”

        This! I cant stand the stories. I don’t care that someone stood on a Lego brick 16 years ago and that somehow started the culinary journey to be a master chef *insert obligatory crying here*.

        Just give me balls to the wall incredible dishes that average joes are being asked to pull of.

        1. Netflix has some competition reality shows that don’t do backstories/do minimal backstories (e.g. Next in Fashion, Glow Up, Blown Away) and it’s _great_.

          Also, I don’t want any of these fake stakes either, especially after all these years, audiences are now very savvy to the reality TV tropes/tricks – “This pasta needs to be cooked _perfectly_” well duhhh. “It’s Top , there’s no room for error now!” But they say that every week.

          1. God yes, the back stories drive me nuts on all of these reality shows, especially when they keep repeating them. Yes, give us a bit of an intro to the contestants when we first meet them but don’t rehash their entire background in every episode or every time we see them. Ultimate Tag and Ninja Warrior were terrible with that as well. Ninja Warrior would make me laugh though when they would spend 5 minutes on an intro package for someone that fell off the course in 20 seconds.

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