It’s been a rough year for MediaWorks, with TVNZ reigning in the ratings department. And despite its hopes that its pick up of Masterchef NZ’s sixth season would pull a decent few pairs of eyes over to the network, the show has rated significantly lower than its preceding seasons. But, as Auckland physiotherapist Tim Read was crowned as Masterchef NZ 2015 last night, the show’s final episode went out on a ratings high. PLUS: Seven weeks on Story’s ratings are no match for Seven Sharp’s.
Masterchef NZ shifted to TV3 this year after five seasons on TV One. This season added judges Mark Wallbank and Al Brown, to replace Ray McVinnie and Simon Gault.
My Food Bag also partnered up with Masterchef NZ for the series, with former contestant and the face of My Food Bag Nadia Lim re-establishing her association with the programme.
But, the show failed to resonate with audiences, resulting in low ratings for MediaWorks. However, last night’s episode drew a high average audience of 260,050 five-plus viewers, according to Throng.
The audience for the season averaged at 190,858 viewers per episode, down 59 percent from the fifth season of Masterchef NZ when it was on TV One.
Throng reports this season of Masterchef NZ has attracted the lowest audience figures in all six seasons of the show, with the finale attracting less than half the previous season’s finale low.
Nielsen’s consolidated data shows that across 18 episodes this season of Masterchef NZ had an average audience of 226,800 in the five-plus category and 129,400 in the 25-54 category, which advertisers focus on. This is much lower than last season when it screened on TV One and had an average of 516,50 five-plus viewers and 195,800 viewers in the 25-54 category across 27 episodes.
Comparatively, fellow cooking reality show My Kitchen Rules NZ, which screened on TVNZ’s network, had 407,000 five-plus viewers last season when it aired on TV One and 156,200 24-54 viewers over 30 episodes.
According to Nielsen, Sunday’s episode of Masterchef NZ drew 207,200 in five-plus viewers and 108,900 in the 25-54 category, bringing in an audience significantly lower than that of competing show Sunday (PM) which screens at 7pm on TV One and drew in 469,100 five-plus viewers and 119,500 viewers in the 25-54 category.
(UPDATE) MediaWorks group entertainment director Andrew Szusterman says: “We’re really pleased with how the show has progressed this season on TV3, so a big congratulations to Tim Read our Masterchef for 2015. As far as the numbers go, over 2.2 Million New Zealanders (5+) watched the show during the season with over 1 million in our core demographic of 25-54 year olds.”
“It’s also been a solid performer on 3Now with the show consistently in our top five shows viewed on demand which is also pleasing. We’re also happy with its social media reach especially during the final where it trended #1 in NZ on twitter.”
According to Stuff, MediaWorks’ Campbell Live replacement, current affairs show Story with Duncan Garner and Heather du Plessis-Allan has failed to affect competing show Seven Sharp’s ratings in its first seven weeks on air.
After debuting on August 10 the show has averaged a live audience of 189,897 viewers per episode with its highest episode being its first, which received an audience of 276,270.
Over the same period Seven Sharp averaged 489,911 viewers per episodes on the nights that Story is also on, according to Stuff.
In August 2014, Campbell Live had an average audience of 215,500, in September 2014 that figure was 241,000. In March of this year, before MediaWorks announced Campbell Live would be reviewed, its average audience per episode was 199,100.
