Viewers tuned into a special episode of The Project to farewell MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillo following his shock death
Channel 10’s special episode of The Project to pay tribute to Jock Zonfrillo has drawn a huge audience, just one week after the star was found dead in a hotel room.
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The latest MasterChef series that debuted just one week after the death of judge Jock Zonfrillo has drawn the biggest audience for the show’s launch in three years.
The 15th series of the cooking show was delayed after the Scottish-born chef was found dead at a hotel apartment in Melbourne’s inner north last Monday, and it wasn’t until days later that Network Ten revealed it would be going ahead with airing the program with the blessing of his family.
Official figures from television ratings firm OzTAM showed the program was the third most-watched show on Sunday night and drew 761,000 viewers across the five major metropolitan cities.
This was the highest audience for the show’s launch since 2021 when it drew 670,000 viewers.
Seven News was the most-watched program on Sunday night with 1.004 million viewers, followed by Nine News with 806,000 viewers.
Zonfrillo, 46, was named as a MasterChef judge in 2019, and he was last Monday due to have a day packed with publicity commitments ahead of the show’s original launch date that night, however it wasn’t until later that day that Ten announced his shock death.
His family published a statement saying they had “completely shattered hearts” and were “devastated” to share the news of the star’s death.
Police were called to the Melbourne hotel apartment on Lygon Street, Carlton, at 2am for a welfare check and found Zonfrillo dead.
His family was overseas at the time and funeral details have yet to be announced.
On Sunday night, Ten also aired a one-hour special episode of The Project titled, A Tribute to Jock, which featured a range of high-profile chefs who spoke fondly on Zonfrillo.
Among those included in the special program were Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Matt Moran, Maggie Beer, Curtis Stone and Shannon Bennett.
The show, hosted by Sarah Harris and Waleed Aly, was the fourth most-watched program for the night, drawing 610,000 metro viewers.
The two Ten programs proved more popular with viewers than Seven’s dating series, Farmer Wants a Wife, which drew 609,000 viewers and Nine’s Lego Masters: Grant Masters, which had 567,000 viewers.
Among those to pay tribute included Ramsay who said: “Jock behind the scenes was a lad that refused to get old, a lad that refused to toe the line, and he wanted fun, he wanted to let some steam off”.
While Oliver said: “Jock was very good at being stern, strict, funny and kind and vulnerable, he’s an incredible cocktail.”
Pierre White said he could tell that Zonfrillo was “very gifted, he was intelligent, he was filled with empathy, compassion, qualities which very few chefs possess”.
Zonfrillo is survived by his wife Lauren and his four children, Ava, Sophie, Alfie and Isla.
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Originally published as Viewers tuned into a special episode of The Project to farewell MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillo following his shock death
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