Run it up the tentpole and see

TV in the old days was simple. You could put on really big show on a night and the big audience it drew would stick around for the surrounding shows.

They'd tune into the show beforehand so as not to miss out on their favourite and they'd be so buzzed they'd stick around for the following show.

This strategy in television programming is known as the 'tentpole' in TV terms both Dancing with the Stars and Masterchef are tentpole shows, but one network's tent seems to be made of a lot sterner stuff.

We're gonna need a bigger tent...

Looking at the performance of Dancing with the Stars a competition which is in its 11th cycle, its performance is simply phenomenal.

Even moreso when you consider that recent seasons have had a less than spectacular result for Seven.

Masterchef nets a more desirable younger demographic but Masterchef was never about chasing demos, it was its power as an all-audience draw that made it a household name - a performance of 1.4 million is not poor, but given the investment by Ten in the series versus Seven's much smaller outlay for Dancing and you begin to wonder whether the money has been well spent.

You can bet that the Masterchef prods will be scrambling to come up with some sort of hook to draw in the casual auds over the next few weeks, something to justify their huge pricetag. No doubt we'll see some of these gimmicks advertised in the next few weeks and we'll red flag them here as we see em!

SUNDAY'S NETWORK SKED

SUNDAY'S DIGITAL SKED