In terms of a TV surprise, Network Ten’s unexpected announcement that polarising royal Meghan Markle was joining Junior MasterChef Australia as a co-host certainly takes the honours as the breakout story of the annual Upfronts season.
The news first broke in London on Tuesday that Markle was cooking up another TV career comeback downunder and would join the kids’ version of the popular MasterChef franchise in Melbourne.
Filming will take place next year for two to three weeks sometime after the main MasterChef series wraps at the Melbourne Showgrounds in Ascot Vale. She will co-host alongside Poh Ling Yeow.
It seems MasterChef Australia has become the TV home away from home for Markle thanks to a ‘press send and pray’ email last year by the show’s executive producer Marty Benson.
Markle, also known as the Duchess of Sussex and the wife of Prince Harry, appeared on one episode of MasterChef Australia, which was filmed in April 2026, after Benson watched her now cancelled With Love, Meghan series on Netflix, felt sorry for her and pinged off an email to her agent.
“Everyone was putting her down, the whole world was putting her down, and I was the guy that went, ‘Wait a minute, I think she would be a great guest on our show’,” Benson said backstage at the Logies in August.
“I felt for her because everyone was so hard on her show (With Love, Meghan), and I actually blame the producers of her show... that’s the reason why her show wasn’t very good, not her,”
As they say, if you don’t ask ... and it turns out when MasterChef asked again, it was another yes.
CBD called Benson to ask if Markle’s Junior MasterChef signing was the result of another email from him, but he quickly hand-passed us off to a publicist who could offer no insight.
With a likely three-week stint in Melbourne looming for Markle next year - no word yet if her husband and children will join her - she will have the chance to reconnect with the good folk she met while in town in April.
She rubbed shoulders with chicken heiress Lucy Steggles and philanthropist Amanda Smorgon at a Nexus Summit event at Smorgon’s Melbourne home, as well as FM radio jock Michael Wipfli and his wife Lisa. She also crossed paths with ex-Kyle & Jackie O Show host Jackie ‘O’ Henderson and soon-to-be-announced KIIS FM Drive host Carrie Bickmore at a Her Best Life retreat in Sydney.
Just noting, Markle is not the first royal to step into frame on MasterChef Australia.
Prince Charles, now King Charles, and his wife Queen Camilla appeared on the show in 2018 in an episode fashioned around a reception for the royals in Darwin.
Returning to TV for a moment, the Upfronts are events that take place annually in spring where the Australian TV networks reveal their line-up of programs for the year to come to media, sponsors and advertisers.
Ten’s Upfront is on Wednesday, but we are pretty sure the network’s biggest announcement is very much out of the bag.
McGuire on track for Melbourne Cup
We are deep in the racing season, but footy still manages to get a look in with players populating guest lists, part-owning horses and popping up in social ambassador roles.
Eddie McGuire, who in his own words is hosting “everything” for the Victoria Racing Club in the lead up to Cup Week, even managed to squeeze a Collingwood reference into his rev up of the major racedays ahead when speaking at Flemington Racecourse on Monday.
“Everyone looks good in black and white in my eyes,” the former president of the ’pies quipped while showing his fashion nous.
Black and white is of course the traditional colour palette of Derby Day.
Staying with McGuire, while news broke last week that he would not be hosting the Tuesday edition of Footy Classified on Channel 9 - owner of this masthead - next year - the show has been axed - he is hardly going to disappear from screens. McGuire is heading up the network’s Melbourne Cup Carnival broadcast next week.
Carbines calls Carroll first across the line
He has a fair way to go before he is in the league of race caller Matt Hill, but Anthony Carbines had a reasonable crack at calling his version of an election race in parliament last month.
The moment of spring madness by Carbines, that is noted in Hansard, was brought to CBD’s attention this week.
Carbines, the racing minister, included the election race as part of his update to the house on “Australia’s original major event, the Victorian Spring Racing Carnival.”
His tongue-in-cheek speech included references to “a late plunge”, “the people’s champ”, “a change of jockey”, and quips about “One Nation making a late run, one out and one back with some cover from the blue silks” and “the Liberal Party .. often the frontrunner, always the bridesmaid”.
But we would venture that his choice of winner was never in doubt.
“It is neck and neck. It is a head bobber. Here comes Aberfeldie Boy, the first past the post on 28 November,” Carbines said.
Aberfeldie is part of Ben Carroll’s electorate of Niddrie. For the record, Aberfeldie Boy is an actual racehorse, having won one of his 22 starts. He finished 5th of 11 at his last start at Sandown in July.