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This was published 4 years ago
The search for new judges could be blessing in disguise for MasterChef
By Karl Quinn
After a season in which it endured its lowest ratings ever, and with scandals following George Calombaris around like the most determined tagger in football, losing its three hosts might have seemed the ultimate body blow for Ten's MasterChef. But in fact, it could be precisely what the show needs to survive.
New hosts could infuse the long-running cooking contest with a compelling reason to tune in. They could defuse the suspicion of a disconnect between the show's "caring" ethos and the systematic underpayment of workers at Calombaris's Made Establishment restaurants group. And they could shore up the all-important sponsorship arrangements with brands growing nervous about whether their association with the show might work against rather than for them.
Tried and tested: Maggie Beer is a regular at the MasterChef studio.
Above all, it could offer MasterChef a chance for a fresh start.
But with production on the 2020 season of MasterChef due to start as early as October, the search for a team of new hosts to replace the original trio of Matt Preston, Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris has an edge of urgency.
Indeed, it's possible the deal is already done, with some media reporting that Maggie Beer, Curtis Stone and Poh Ling Yeow have been signed to step into the roles for season 12.
Such a line-up would make enormous sense, ticking the boxes of demographic spread (Beer is 74, Yeow is 45, Stone is 43), ethnic and gender diversity as well as popular appeal.
Poh Ling Yeow is a popular suggestion as potential host/judge.Credit: Tony Lewis
All have extensive television experience too, and as a runner-up on the cooking competition in its first season, Yeow knows what it's like from the inside, and also knows the doors it can open even if you're not crowned Australia's next MasterChef.
There's also the small matter of Stone's commercial arrangement with Coles, one of the show's biggest and most long-standing sponsors. It can't hurt (though the fact he owns and runs two restaurants in Los Angeles might).
Asked on Wednesday if there was any truth in the rumour, a Network Ten spokesperson said: "Maggie, Curtis and Poh are loved members of the MasterChef family. We are currently casting the judges for 2020 and no decision has been made."
Sources close to Maggie Beer denied any deal had been done.
Social media has, of course, been aflame with suggestions of possible new hosts since Ten announced on Tuesday afternoon that it had "not been able to reach a commercial agreement that was satisfactory to Matt, Gary and George".
Kylie Kwong is one popular suggestion, along with former contestants Adam Liaw (a seasoned presenter on SBS's food channel) and Alice Zaslavsky (whose post-MasterChef career has seen her merge her pre-show teaching work with her food passion in children's educational platform Phenomenom).
Zaslavsky has told ABC News Breakfast, where she is a regular guest presenter, she has "my cravat in the car, I'm ready to go", but Liaw has suggested Padma Lakshmi, host of US cooking show Top Chef, would "make a great new host/judge" on MasterChef Australia.
Some wags have suggested dusting off some TV chefs from the past including Peter "G'day" Russell Clarke and Iain "Huey" Hewitson, while others have left the cooking realm altogether, advocating for Shaun Micallef – well, why not; the man can do pretty much anything – and Hamish Blake (comedian Dan Ilic posted a picture of a Ten executive "vision board" in which Blake occupies all three host positions).
More realistically, Ten might consider poaching a foodie from a rival network – Karen Martini, say, from Seven's MKR – or even from one of its own shows. Justine Schofield, another former MasterChef alumnus, might be deemed ready to step up from the minor league Everyday Gourmet to the majors.
Perhaps chef Matt Moran – who ticks the tough-but-fair box – might be lured back to the show he quit as a guest judge in 2013 on a more permanent basis.
At any rate, Ten suddenly finds itself in a glass-half-full/half-empty situation. Its flagship reality program has lost its stars, but it has done so as the show endures its lowest ratings ever. This, perhaps, is the opportunity for the reboot it desperately needs.
Ten's decision to drop the news on Tuesday afternoon, on the eve of the season 11 finale, was almost certainly an attempt to boost viewer numbers as much as a reflection of a sudden breakdown in negotiations.
Monday night's elimination semi-final attracted an average 720,000 metro viewers, far from the figure Ten would have hoped for. Last Thursday's masterclass was watched by fewer than 400,000.
The show that once pulled almost 4 million viewers for its final moments was watched on Tuesday night by an average 831,000 in the five capital cities, while the episode in which Larissa Takchi was crowned the winner pulled 992,000. That was the worst result for the finale on record.
The ratings collapse was surely one factor in Ten holding out on the trio's reported pay demands. So too was the threat to sponsorship arrangements represented by Made Establishment's (of which Calombaris is the major shareholder and former director) long-running underpayment saga.
This week saw WA Tourism dropped the restaurateur from a promotional campaign, with the state's tourism minister Paul Papalia saying "what George Calombaris has done is terrible". It's highly likely other high-profile sponsors of the show were wondering if they ought to do the same.
Now Ten has the chance to reboot a show that had grown both overly familiar and uncharacteristically newsworthy, for all the wrong reasons.
If it sticks with the established format, Ten and its production partner Endemol Shine Australia will be looking for people with experience in the restaurant industry, who are free from accusations of underpaying staff and who can comfortably present to camera, and people from a recipe-development, restaurant-reviewing or food-writing background.
In 2009, when the show was first cast, that might have seemed a limited field. These days, thanks in no small part to the explosion of interest in all things food triggered by MasterChef itself, it's bursting with candidates.
The trio of Matt, Gary and George have been the rock on which Australian TV's standout cooking contest has been built, and their departure is undoubtedly a blow. But for Ten, it's also possibly a blessing, giving them a golden opportunity to reset.
Get it right, and MasterChef might be with us for years to come. Get it wrong, though, and its journey could soon come to an end.
With Nathanael Cooper, Broede Carmody
Follow the author on Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on twitter @karlkwin