Gordon Ramsay‘s “MasterChef” has been renewed for a 14th season at Fox ahead of airing its milestone 250th episode Wednesday at 8 p.m.
“I cannot believe 250 episodes have flown by since we started this journey in 2010,” Ramsay told PvNew. “For me, seeing the growth of home cooking firsthand over the last 13 years has been absolutely extraordinary, and a testament to the power of the show.”
On the currently airing 13th season of the Endemol Shine North America-produced cooking competition, which is based on a format created by Franc Roddam that has been adapted more than 60 times globally, host Ramsay is judging alongside Aarón Sánchez and renowned restaurateur Joe Bastianich, who will both return to their posts for Season 14.
This season’s twist is a “United Tastes of America” theme, which has brought together the top home cooks from four parts of America (West, Northeast, Midwest and South) to represent their regions in a slew of challenges and, in the end, one will be granted a cash prize of $250,000 and the title of America’s MasterChef.
“For the last 13 seasons ‘MasterChef’ has chronicled the transformation of foodyism in America,” Bastianich said. “The home cooks treat the competition like a culinary master class, learning and growing from our guidance. And frankly, the skill level has never been higher, with impressive innovation and a passion for local ingredients, it’s been a joy to be a part of this iconic series from the very beginning.”
Debuting in 2010 on Fox, just four years after main competitor “Top Chef” premiered on Bravo, “MasterChef” is the longest-running competitive cooking reality TV series on broadcast television.
“MasterChef” Season 13 is currently averaging 3.1 million total viewers, according to Nielsen’s Live + 7 Day data, and is up year-over-year in multiplatform viewers with an average of 4.6 million total viewers — the largest multiplatform audience of any Fox series this summer to date.
Those stats are a point of pride for Fox, which has managed to keep cooking up food TV programming, while other networks shy away from the genre due in large part to its partnership with Ramsay on “MasterChef,” as well as “MasterChef Junior,” “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Next Level Chef” and, now, new series “Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars” and the soon-to-be revived “Kitchen Nightmares.”
“We are beyond excited. I don’t know how many shows there are out there that can say that they’ve been on for 13 years. And to be celebrating 250 episodes of a show that just is consistently getting stronger and stronger is a really proud moment, especially in this TV environment,” Fox unscripted chief Allison Wallach said. “And it comes at a time where our relationship with Gordon is now more formalized with the launch of Studio Ramsay Global. Having someone like Gordon at the helm of it has really helped us establish Fox as the destination for food programming in broadcast. We’ve seen the lack of other food programming as an opportunity for us, rather than a deterrent, that there’s nothing else out there on broadcast.”
While “MasterChef” rules the broadcast cooking competition space, it has prominent rivals on cable and streaming, most notably “Top Chef.” But what judge Sánchez says sets the show apart from the many others that have premiered in recent years is its mentoring aspect.
“I’ve been part of those other shows and seeing the progression of the genre, I think for us, personally, what we do a great job of is the fact that they’re with us for an extended period of time, and they’re getting mentoring,” Sánchez said. “They’re getting master classes, they’re learning how to fillet fish, they’re doing a lot of different things that we’re teaching, which is not so brief in time. There’s a lot of takeaway. And for us, it’s very gratifying to see these young contestants or older contestants come in there with this love for food, and then all of a sudden really take that and run with it.”
Sánchez says that the most recent seasons of “MasterChef,” which have been taped following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, have benefitted from the renewed interest in home cooking that came out of lockdown.
“Everyone came in very well prepared because they were at home and they were cooking and experimenting with different ingredients,” he said, adding “the level of competition and quality has really risen in the last couple seasons.”
Endemol Shine North America CEO Sharon Levy and DJ Nurre, executive vice president of unscripted at Endemol Shine North America, credit the ongoing success of the series to a combination of its “sneaky” teaching methods and the wonder that is Gordon Ramsay.
“You come away a little bit smarter. Like I was just watching an episode this morning,” Nurre said. “And I think I learned four new things about how I should be using saffron, and how you can tell when your salmon is overcooked. And that takeaway is interesting to people that are aficionados in the space, but it’s also interesting to just the layperson.”
Levy added: “Gordon is so essential, and his expectation of excellence is at the heart of the show. And on ‘MasterChef,’ you see levels of Gordon. I remember we had a woman who sliced her finger, which obviously happens on any culinary show, and Gordon was the one who immediately jumped in, stopped the bleeding and kept going. There’s a reason why he’s in so many shows. He’s an exceptional talent and he really leads with his heart. He just gives 100%. He’s always going to demand of us and demand of the cooks, a level of excellence. And that, I think, shines through on the success of the chefs.”
Per Fox, on tonight’s 250th episode of “MasterChef,” “the competition heats up when the judges present an oversized table in the shape of the United States, full of a daunting array of elaborate cakes from all four regions of America. Each iconic cake will need to be precisely recreated if the cooks hope to make it through!”
