MasterChef to be aired in English on Channel 5 instead of Mandarin
The inaugural MasterChef Singapore will not be aired in Mandarin on national broadcaster Mediacorp’s free-to-air Chinese-language Channel 8 but will instead air on its English counterpart Channel 5.
“As English rights were originally not available, the show was set to air on Channel 8. However, following further negotiations, MasterChef Singapore will now air for Singapore viewers on Channel 5 in English and reach a more diverse audience,” said a joint media statement by Mediacorp and Motion Content Group on Monday (2 April).
The latter is part of media management company GroupM, which had earlier acquired the rights to produce and broadcast MasterChef Singapore from Endemol Shine Group.
The Singapore edition of the reality TV series is set to premiere later this year, with judges to be announced at a later date, said the statement, adding that the casting call deadline has been extended until midnight this Friday (6 April).
The decision to air MasterChef Singapore in Mandarin when it was first announced in February this year triggered a backlash as netizens felt it would alienate non-Mandarin speakers. Potential applicants were also asked online “to rate their fluency in Mandarin”.
In response, Mediacorp had then insisted that contestants do not need to be fluent in Mandarin.
“For contestants, fluency… is not a prerequisite as translation services can be provided during the show,” the broadcaster said in an earlier statement, according to an AFP report. “For television viewers, the series will be subtitled.”
The Chinese channel “attracts the largest audience of any channel in its network”, added the broadcaster.
MasterChef, created in 1990 by British film director Franc Roddam and featuring celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay, pits amateur chefs against each other in a pressure-cooker environment.
It has since been adapted locally in 54 countries, including “MasterChef Asia” which was first broadcast across the region in English in 2015.
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