Panasonic, Sunbeam and Telstra were among the brands that took advantage of the massive Masterchef audience delivered during Sunday night’s final, which delivered a peak audience of 4.3 Million.
The program deliverd the Ten network’s biggest Australian TV audience for a single program in at least five years according to data from OZTam.
Marketing web site MUmBRELLA claimed that according to metro ratings from OzTam, last night’s winner announcement, which saw Adam Liaw defeat Callum Hann, attracted an average of 3.962m viewers and a peak audience of 4.348m.
The final of the first series of Masterchef rated an average metro audience of 3.7m with a peak audience of 4.1m.
MUmBRELLA said that the all time biggest Australian TV audience may never be surpassed, which was Seven’s coverage of the Opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, which had an audience of 6.5m viewers.
The Sydney Morning Herald said that media buyers estimate that over 85 hours of programming, Ten’s sales team would have sold anywhere between $65 million and $80 million in ads.
Faith Campbell, the trading director of media-buying agency PHD Australia, said that 30-second spots in the finale were selling at $45,000.
“That’s not taking into account sales of things like MasterChef aprons and all the associated merchandise with the series. Either way it’s a big number,” said Ms Campbell.
It is almost impossible to put a dollar figure on the amount of contra – products given free in return for a mention – that would have offset the production costs for Ten and the company that made the program, FremantleMedia.
