Black Widow Catches Big Crowd

TVNZ 1’s Sunday Theatre season of Kiwi drama drew more than 1.5 million viewers across its three-week run and went out on a high with its dramatisation of the Helen Milner case.

Catching The Black Widow lured 940,700 viewers and 355,300 25-54 year-olds, which is TVNZ 1’s target demographic.

The season premiere, The Dance Exponents: Why Does Love, was watched by 869,6000 viewers and 330,600 25-54 year-olds.

Resolve pulled 826,800 viewers and 344,900 25-54 year-olds. TVNZ reports it’s been a “big talking point” since broadcast and has notched up nearly 100,000 streams on TVNZ.co.nz.

While another local drama series, Filthy Rich, has been struggling, with last week’s +5 viewership dropping to 120,500, Three has renewed for a fourth season Westside, which last week won its slot in the core demos and drew 203,000 viewers.

Meanwhile, another true-crime commission has been greenlit for possibly next year’s Sunday Theatre, Mistress Mercy (see below), while soon to screen on TVNZ 1 is Dear Murderer, a series inspired by the life of lawyer Mike Bungay.

Also in the pipeline are:

➢ Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s Paranormal Event Response Unit

➢ the ABC/TVNZ/Netflix backed The Legend of Monkey

➢ another season of 800 Words.

NZ On Air’s backing of local drama continues with the funding agency last month committing $15.5 million to the genre under its NZ Media Fund:

➢ In Dark Places (90 mins, The 10,000 Company for TVNZ 1, up to $2,944,175): A Rautaki Māori telefeature based on the true story of a wrongful conviction for rape and murder

➢ War Stories (84 mins, Making Movies for TVNZ 1, up to $2,690,000): An international co-production telefeature based on an extraordinary 1997 interview conducted by NZ journalist Peter Arnett with Osama bin Laden, and the events that followed

➢ Daffodils (90 mins, Libertine Pictures for TVNZ 1, up to $200,000): A feature-length musical based on the successful stage show celebrating a couple’s love and marriage amid re-imaginings of loved New Zealand songs (with the NZFC)

➢ Westside 4 (8 x 44 mins South Pacific Pictures for Three, up to $6,543,500): The continuation of the popular back story of Ted and Rita West, their son Wolf and soon-to-be wife Cheryl

➢ Jono and Ben (26 x 44 mins, Mediaworks for Three, up to $1,717,042): A seventh season of the entertainment comedy series

➢ 7 Days (32 x 32 mins, Mediaworks for Three, up to $1,056,000): A ninth season of the comedy panel show.

NZOA’s also pumping tens of millions of dollars into new factual content. Highlights of July’s funding round include:

➢ Mistress Mercy (90 mins, Gibson Group for TVNZ 1, up to $1,109750): A Sunday Theatre docudrama on a significant NZ murder trial

➢ National Anthems (5 x 52 mins, Notable Pictures for Prime, up to $1,324,608): A documentary series about NZ popular music, with a focus on our most-loved songs

➢ Ocean Predators (3 x 44 mins, Ocean Answers Ltd for Prime, up to $767,030): Documentary series about thrilling encounters with our oceans’ biggest predators

➢ I Am … (6 x 44 mins, Screentime New Zealand for TVNZ 1, up to $749,949): Six intensely emotional first hand accounts of what it means to be different

➢ How Not To Get Cancer (4 x 44 mins, Feather And Wolf Media Ltd for TVNZ 1, up to $692,355): A leading cancer surgeon sorts superstition from science as he explores why we die from so many preventable cancers, and what we can do about it.

➢ The Demolition Teams (10 x 22 mins, Broadcast Media for Prime, up to $369,540): Viewers will be taken inside the hardhat no-go zones inhabited by demolition teams, charged with taking down buildings left unsafe by recent earthquakes

➢ Intake (7 x 26 mins, Diva Productions for Māori Television, up to $310,475): A groundbreaking series observing a troop of young NZ Army recruits in gruelling basic training

➢ Face the Classroom (2 x 44 mins, Screentime New Zealand for TVNZ 1, up to $213,335): Future voters grill our political leaders in two-hour long pre-election specials

➢ In Foreign Fields (52 mins, Ponsonby Productions for Māori Television, up to $197,634): An Anzac Day special about an initiative begins to bring home the last of the bodies of Kiwi soldiers killed in the South East Asian conflicts

➢ Millennium Teens (44 mins, Greenstone TV for TVNZ 1, up to $174,981): How life has turned out for a group of 18-year-olds who were the subject of a documentary filmed in December 1999 on the first NZ babies born in the new millennium

➢ Coast New Zealand 3 (6 x 44ins, Great Southern Television for TVNZ 1, up to $1,808,685): More of the top-rating series about our people, places and history

➢ Country Calendar 2018 (38 x 22.5 mins, TVNZ for TVNZ 1, up to $538,384).