Kiwi Coro viewers have declined from 307,000 in 2002 to 159,000 today, whereas the last Australian MasterChef final apparently pulled a million viewers. Majority rule. Primetime fare. Simple as that.
I know I'll be one of the million for the latest final too. I think the Australian MasterChef show is ... well ... masterly. It certainly shines way brighter than the British or New Zealand ones. Just where do they get so much funding?
So, why do I find it masterly? Let me count the ways. It has introduced us to some of the world's finest chefs - Heston Blumenthal, Marco Pierre White and the like.
It sets interesting culinary challenges, though I must add that I haven't agreed with them all. The United Nations canape challenge was rather a farce because you were told what you had to make, so the loser was always going to be the one who drew the least popular item. A shot of soup?
And I felt the one where you had to pick a card with an ingredient then another with a cooking method was very unfair. There were obvious mismatches of ingredients with cooking methods you would never use to prepare them. It was largely luck of the draw.
In general, however, the challenges are interesting and well thought out, and they test skills that a chef simply must possess.
Then there are the three main presenters. They don't command attention through their looks, their grammar or their cravats. They command attention because they know their stuff and, boy, do they know it well! They are true masters of their craft.
The programme also takes us to interesting and challenging venues: A sheep farm, Cronulla Beach, a Western Australian mine, New York, to name a few. As the contestants roamed the streets of their allocated quarter of New York, we the viewers managed to savour the areas too.
MasterChef also has style; the direction is slick. It is a feast of tasteful depth of field, zappy editing, classy setting. Do they hose out the MasterChef kitchen before each session to get the wet look and the puddles?
Old Father Time contributes to the excitement as well. Everything has to be done within a strict time limit, just the way it should be done in a good restaurant or catering operation. Constant close-ups of the clock remind us of this, though some of the editing in those final minutes of a challenge is rather creative, to say the least.
Yes, there are elements which can only be described as cruel but it is a contest, after all. What does "lock-down in New York" actually mean? It certainly doesn't sound too pleasant. And, to my mind, shots of tears are rather overdone (a little culinary pun there).
But MasterChef attracts the viewers so it earns the primetime slot and Coro fans will just have to wear it. Or eat it.
I have, however, thought of a dish which one of the amateur chefs could create during these final challenges in order to keep the Coro fans a little happier.
They've seen Heston Blumenthal perform his food chemistry so one of them could now use those skills to create a retro sausage, for example. A milk stout banger.
Or a milk stout burger. A Sharplesburger, which plays the Coro theme when you bite into it.
Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, public speaker and musician.
