Ten and Nine faced off last night in a reality TV grand finale battle, with the overnight OzTAM figures proving viewers’ appetites were biggest for MasterChef Australia.

The grand final of Ten’s cooking show drew an average five-city metro audience of 1.13 million, which grew to 1.3 million once the winner was announced – up partially from posting 1.12 million/1. 3 million in 2017.

Meanwhile, Nine’s Australian Ninja Warrior finale averaged 1.09 million sets of eyeballs, which increased to 1.14 million at the end of the show which, unlike MasterChef, didn’t produce a winner (much to the disappointment of many viewers).

Ninja Warrior’s viewing figures were down considerably for this year’s grand final compared to 2017’s figures of 2.15 million/2.04 million.

A Nine spokesperson admitted to B&T that it was always going to be a tough ask for the network to repeat last year’s meteoric figures.

“But we’re extremely pleased with how Ninja has performed. It’s delivered exactly as we expected it to and has dominated family viewing these past four weeks,” the spokesperson said.

However, MasterChef’s ratings win was soured by Nine’s overall efforts, which gave the network 31.6 per cent share compared to Ten’s 25.4 per cent, Seven’s 23 per cent, the ABC’s 14.7 per cent, and SBS’s 5.4 per cent.