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A couple of nights a week, me, the couch and Masterchef are good friends

The cracks in the shiny porcelain of Channel Ten’s MasterChef have begun to appear. In a shock to the foodies that tune in nightly, the favourite to win the hearts and stomachs of the nation, Generation Y chef Marion Grasby, was let go after turning in a soggy satay sauce. Though my heart goes out to the 27-year-old from South Australia, my gripe with the show is not in the vein of generational loyalty. I’ve still got the impossibly friendly, yet consistently flustered 20-year-old Callum Hann to barrack for.

I’m cranky because the “integrated” advertising is taking over from the show itself and becoming downright annoying. Despite being known around the office as a loud opponent of the tripe served up on Australian commercial TV, I do like MasterChef. My viewing usually doesn’t extend much further than ABC and SBS, but I am more than happy to admit a couple of nights a week, me, the couch and MasterChef are good friends.

I like the fact that after generations of eating take-aways and frozen vegetables, Australians are finally enjoying a love affair with real food. I love it that food preparation is a carefully considered art. I am impressed that my young, male friends now shamelessly talk about “plating up”. Compared to shows like Today Tonight and Border Patrol, which I believe push messages of intolerance and narrow mindedness, MasterChef sends a refreshing and positive message: eat well, live well.

But I didn’t enjoy the episode in which contestants had to create a business class meal for Qantas and the flying kangaroo was so relentlessly displayed it burnt its image on my eyeballs. Or after watching judge Matt Preston get down on his hands and knees to wipe up some spilt salmon roe with a Handee paper towel, I’m then bombarded with the same footage in a conveniently placed Handee ad in the next break. Of course, there’s the lucrative deal with Coles. The supermarket reportedly paid $3 million to sponsor MasterChef in 2010 and supply every product used in the kitchen.

Food shows obviously lend themselves to product placement and the audience understands the commercial partnerships that are at play. Nobody is being taken for a fool here. Viewers aren’t subliminally tricked into buying the ingredient they saw on MasterChef the night before. Some are even in favour of integrated advertising as it is a soothing contrast to the aggressive messages shouted at them during the break.

But what concerns me is that as more TV is watched via on-demand services, advertisers will be looking for ads that cannot be skipped at the flick of a remote, and integrated advertising is one of the answers. With MasterChef approaching what sometimes seems like a 60-minute advertisement already, I wonder how much further they can go. Producers are running a fine line between engaging and alienating viewers. It would be a shame if the ad noise become so loud that 2 million viewers simply tune in to tune out, especially when the content was a unique and even at times uplifting, in what is otherwise fairly dismal and uninspiring content on Australian commercial TV.

BRW

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