Channel Seven aired My Kitchen Rules rather than a pre-Commonwealth Games closing ceremony honouring athletes because it was concerned about ratings, according to a leading media analyst.
Australian athletes enter the stadium before the start of the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony.

Steve Allen from Fusion Strategy said he believed it was the right decision, and that it would have been "locked in" weeks earlier to maintain the network's ratings edge over Channel Nine.

"It was kind of a commercial imperative from the way we see what they were doing strategically," Mr Allen said.

"Nine really bested them from the start of the year — first in February with Married at First Sight — and it depressed the ratings of My Kitchen Rules (MKR).

"Nine was launching on the Sunday night with The Voice, regardless of what Seven was doing.

"That was slotted in some time ago, so whether they put the athletes walk in, or whether they put MKR on, Seven had to think carefully about their strategy and their ratings prospects."

Mr Allen said while Seven won ratings gold during the Games, it could have lost out big time by postponing MKR's relaunch to Monday night.

"I think that is some of the choice they made. They said 'right, we know we are going to have a strong lead-in in ratings from the Gold Medal Group two-hour special at 4:00pm. It will lead into our news, we will have a strong news, we have had that all the way through the Commonwealth Games. We will lead straight out of that into MKR, we will revive the ratings of MKR'," he said.