Seven's My Kitchen Rules racked up a mammoth 2.2 million metro viewers last night, slaughtering timeslot competitor MasterChef: The Professionals which pulled in just 627,000.
The tally was My Kitchen Rules' (MKR) biggest yet and was the highest-rating program in the Top 20, according to preliminary OzTam figures. MasterChef: The Professionals (MCP) only just made it into the top 20 in 19th place.
MCP has suffered in the overall category since MKR premiered last week in same 7.30 PM timeslot, averaging an audience of 700,000.
Maxus Sydney trading director Adriana Damjanovic told AdNews Seven's figures were likely to continue because it had hit a sweet spot in terms of promotion and content.
"The 2.2 million figure shows that Seven has got it right... That was very clear last night," she said.
"It shows the power of promotion of a show and the power of its content. There was a massive build up to the episode which made so many people want to watch it. Tonight will be just as good. Ratings this high are a great lead into the actual survey period."
The return of Seven's Revenge claimed second place with 1.4 million metro viewers, followed by Seven News with 1.2 million. Today Tonight and Home and Away also fared well with respective figures of 1.16 million and 1.02 million
Nine's The Block: All Stars stopped short of the one million mark, coming in at 959,000 metro viewers. It was followed by A Current Affair with 950,000.
The only other program to rate in the overall Top 20 category for Channel Ten was its News at Five which amassed 724,000 metro viewers.
Other programs to rate in the Top 20 included The Big Bang Theory (Nine), How I Met Your Mother (Seven), Media Watch (ABC) and Four Corners (ABC).
Unsurprisingly, Network Seven won the audience share with 37%, followed by Nine Network with 25.7%. ABC made 18.6% while Network Ten gathered 15.1%. SBS took 3.6%.
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