The Block hammers The Renovators after the food fight concludes

Channel 9’s renovation realty series The Block topped Monday night’s viewing with a 1.55 million audience as its races towards its August 21 finale.

But The Renovators on Channel 10 got dumped dropping to just 786,000 viewers, ranking 11th for the night after it made the switch to the 7.30 timeslot vacated by MasterChef.

After The Block concluded at 8pm The Renovators average audience grew to 942,000 offering Channel 10 the faint hope that renovation fans might switch when The Block concludes in a fortnight’s time.

The rumoured production budget of The Renovators was between $20 million and $30 million.

Shine, the production company behind MasterChef, spent almost $3.5 million on the purchase of six Sydney properties. With the properties costing between $300,000 and $730,000, there's a terrace in Glebe, a partly renovated house in St Peters, a 1960s house in Castle Hill, a former general store in Marrickville, a Parramatta weatherboard and fibro cottage in Blacktown.

The six Sydney properties have been pencilled in for October auction.

The four houses in The Block cost its production company $3.6 million.

For your chance to win tickets to The Block's auction, click here.

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