"You might like to consider the fact that there are many times more people who don't watch, as those who do. By eliminating the views of this cohort, your survey is automatically skewed to the responses of those who have already made a relatively positive decision as to its potential value."

@Pericles, thanks for bringing up this point! Yes, this is one limiting aspect, but it is interesting also that over 50% of respondents to my survey only watch 0-1 episodes of MC per week, yet are still able to provide some sort of opinion on the show. Considering over one fifth of Aus's population watched the show at its peak, this proves one of my hypotheses, that MC has had so much of an influence that even those who are not regular watchers know so much about the details.

@579, I also think its intriguing that this food craze exists at the same time of the body size pandemic.

I can't stand MC. All that "concocted" drama over mere food is an intellectual embarrassment, and a sign of how easy it is to manipulate the modern audience. I've watched several episodes in full, and because someone in my household watches it regularly I've seen quite a few snippets of it. It simply makes me cringe. To me it screams out "fake, fake, fake, concocted drama".

Cynnamon, all these reality TV programs are self correcting. If MC makes you obese you can do the Great Race, The Block, Talent or Dancing to work off those extra kilos.

If that fails you can volunteer for Medical Procedures such as suction or lap banding or if you have no embarrassment gene, Biggest Loser.

It might be much more meaningful if your research covered the appeal of generic reality TV shows?

I could write a theseis on it myself.

The general theme is that people are tired with the consumer culture, and want to go back to some kind of domestic simplicity, but need to do it in a consumer-oriented way and a competetive way.

Dancing with the stars, dancing on ice!, dancing with your spouses lover (I have copywrited that one), Master Chef, My Kitchen Rules, The Iron Chef, The Block, Better Homes than yours...

People really are into nesting and cooking and domesticity at the moment. Perhaps it's a plot to make us buy something as with such a high standard of living we need to be going down to that chinese grocer and finding exotic new ingredients, or throwing out perfectly good lounge rooms and remodelling them.

It's not the consumerism that interests me but the focus on the domestic.

I think you can sum it up by saying that it's every yuppie or sea changing baby boomer's dream to live in a 19th century Tuscan village with slow food and colourful local characters sitting around a piano at nights.

I think that a whole lot of Aussies are belately waking up to the fact
that great food exists, you can cook it yourself and its not that
difficult, if talented chefs show you how to do it.

Let's face it, even today, travel down our highways and the roadhouse
food is truly crap. More like British food, bland and boring. That
was our culture, but with other influences, it is luckily finally
changing.

As people travel more through central Europe, as migrants influence
our food, more and more Aussies realise that great food is one of
those joys of life, like great sex or great music! No need to
settle for a chiko roll or a pie anymore. So all sorts of cooking
shows have taken off, so have suitable ingredients etc, opening up
whole new industries

That whole new industries really gave me a chuckle yabby, just thrown in there like that at the end, I hope it was deliberate.

It's not just cooking Yabbs. It's all sorts of homeliness. The 'outdoor room', 'alfresco dining', Home Improvement, and the simple entertainment of dancing.

I remember coming back from the UK after many years, to find Australia had 'fallen in love' with dancing. There were about 7 or 8 dancing shows on the tele. The Straya I knew before leaving would never have embraced something as daggy as ballroom dancing. CSI I could understand, but dancing? The country of people who used to shuffle to Jimmy Barnes?

Anyway, I'm sure Poirot would agree, there seems an innate need to reconnect to some sort of basic living. Like I said, it's not the remodelling and renovating, it's how and in what way I find fascinating. It's a window into the yuppie soul.

Like I say, the bogan is easily seduced with anything new and shiny, a buy now pay later big screen hardly Normal Home Theatre, but the yuppie has to be seduced with a little story about the rustic charm of Tuscan villages before they hand over their money for the latest in picnic blankets. Throw in some environmental concerns and it's a done deal! No more pesky self flagellation and they can buy heaps and heaps of unnecessary stuff and still be better than the 'consumerist' bogan.

I think you'll find the average 'working family' still eats at pizza hut and their Better Homes than Yours wood-fire oven out the back yard next to the water feature is slowly being broken down by the elements.

PS: Look up Shabby Chic