MasterChef: The Professionals has had a strong first outing, wooing an audience of 1.165 million viewers as contestants were thrown into the deep end.
The clanging of the kitchen pots and pans, dumpling battles and a dish without its duck kept the drama high as competitors sweated through dinner service.
The cooking show sat in third place, above the cricket and the tennis – which was rained out before MasterChef kicked off.
Late last week, media experts predicted the program would premiere with about 1.1 million viewers as they debated if The Professionals can turn Ten’s fortunes around.
The first session of the one day cricket match between Australia and Sri Lanka had 945,000 viewers and proved more popular then the evening’s tennis pairings.
However, there was a marked drop in viewers between the cricket’s first and second sessions with the later one watched by 640,000.
On Seven the tennis had 893,000 viewers while the later match pulled in 882,000.
The ABC’s Restoration Home sat topped the top 10 with 627,000 viewers.
Nine won the news war with 1.501 million viewers tuning into Nine News compared to the 1.243 million viewers who watched Seven News.
ABC News was in seventh place with 761,000 viewers. Ten News at Five had an audience of 480,000.
Seven dominated the night with an overall free-to-air 35.8% share of viewers. Nine was in second place with a share of 22.8% and was closely followed by Ten on 21.8%.
The ABC claimed 14.1% while SBS had 5.6%.
