Plate of Origin cooking show is ‘dead’ after three nights of poor ratings

A leading TV commentator has said Seven’s much-hyped cooking show is dead in the water after its ratings sank to a new low last night.

Plate of Origin’s ratings sank to a new low last night, with a leading TV commentator announcing “the show is dead”.

Channel 7’s much-hyped cooking show launched on Sunday night and pulled in 667,000 viewers in the five capital cities.

On Monday night that dropped to 510,000 and last night it dropped even lower with just 419,000 people tuning in.

Last night’s episode was comprehensively beaten by The Masked Singer (797,000), The Block (692,000) and Anh’s Brush with Fame (682,000).

“The show’s dead,” Rob McKnight, a former Channel 10 executive producer who now runs industry news site TV Blackbox, told news.com.au.

Plate of Origin.

“With stiff competition of The Block, Plate of Origin just isn’t firing. When you get a drop-off like you did from night one to night two, that’s an indication that the show’s not strong enough for viewers to return.”

Mr McKnight suggested that viewers might not have been in the mood for another cooking show so quickly after MasterChef wrapped up.

“The fact is, we’ve had a big dose of MasterChef which viewers loved,” he told news.com.au. “Channel 10 did a great job with that show.

“But I think to a lot of people found Plate of Origin to be a confusing format.

“The thing that stood out to me was the chemistry of the judges. Matt (Preston), Gary (Mehigan) and Manu (Feildel) are amazing judges, but their star power isn’t enough to make this format work.”

Is #PlateOfOriginAU just MKR but without peoples houses and more ethnic people?

— Neil Way (@neil_way) August 30, 2020

Just thinking how nice it is to watch a cooking show without bitchiness and drama... then the French team opened their mouths 🙄 I’m out #PlateOfOriginAU

— Renee Hollands (@Coal_Front) August 30, 2020

This reminds me too much of MKR.. 😔 I am very close to switching off. #PlateOfOriginAU

— Poonam Gururajan (@poonam_guru) August 30, 2020

The format of #PlateOfOriginAU is essentially My Kitchen Rules but two teams at once 😂

— GG (@ggg_samm) August 30, 2020

The fact Plate of Origin hasn’t been a hit will disappoint Seven executives but the show wasn't a “make or break” one for the network, Mr McKnight said.

“At the moment, Seven is relying on heritage formats like Big Brother, Farmer Wants a Wife and next year they’ll have The Voice,” he told news.com.au. “Channel 7 are playing it safe by buying a lot of programming that viewers know and have loved.”

He added: “What we’ve seen is the new programs like Pooch Perfect and now Plate of Origin just aren’t firing.”

Matt Preston, Manu Feildel and Gary Mehigan team up for Seven's new cooking series, Plate Of Origin. Picture: Supplied/Seven

Despite the show’s lacklustre ratings, there’s still a chance Plate of Origin could return for a second season, the TV Blackbox editor said.

“A second season could still happen just because of the pure star power of the three judges, but what they would be looking at is reworking the format and possibly getting a new production team in.”

Plate of Origin continues on Channel 7 at 7pm on Sunday night