MasterChef has pulled in 1.88 million viewers in its final episode, as viewers tuned in to watch Elena Duggan crowned winner of the show's 2016 competition.
Duggan was up against Matt Sinclair with the two given five and a half hours to complete 91-step dessert Verjus in Egg, designed by celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal, in the final cook-off. The recipe for the monster dessert is now up on the Network Ten website for viewers looking to take on the challenge themselves.
The winner's announcement of the Network Ten show pulled in 1.88 million viewers according to preliminary overnight OzTam figures, making it the most watched non-sport program of 2016 so far. Its earlier grand finale program had 1.71 million viewers.
The numbers are down on last year's finale which had 2.133 metro viewers for its winners announcement.
MasterChef was a hit on social media with the show taking 33% of all TV tweets on Twitter and with the #MasterChefAU hashtag trending at number on on Twitter nationally last night. In addition, hosts George Calombaris (@gcalombaris) and Matt Preston (@Mattscravat) also trended on Twitter.
Sponsors for the show include Coles, Harvey Norman, Swisse Wellness, Ikea, Devondale, ANZ and Qantas. While MasterChef winner Duggan was awarded $250,000, ANZ gave Sinclair, the show's runner-up, a $40,000 prize.
MasterChef also topped all the major demographics including 16-39, 18-49 and 25-54 age brackets. The biggest metro market for the show was Melbourne with 703,000 viewers followed by Sydney with 517,000 viewers.
Ten topped the night with 32.7% audience share followed by Seven on 24.8% audience share. Nine had 21.0% audience share while ABC had 15.0% and SBS had 6.5%.
Ten is looking to continue the momentum with the launch of this year's The Bachelor tonight, which sees 2015 The Bachelorette favourite Richie Strahan in the hot seat as he looks for love.
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