Dearth of Viewers for Dear Murderer

TVNZ 1’s premiere of Dear Murderer on Thursday won its slot with a 4.9% average of viewers 5+ but finished third in all the key commercial demographics.

It averaged only 2.6% of the network’s target 25-54 audience, compared to lead-in Restoration Man’s 4.3% and had only half the audience share of TVNZ 2’s First Dates, which averaged 5.2% for the 8.30 hour.

Three’s re-run of Speed also out-rated the dramatisation of flamboyant lawyer Mike Bungay’s life and crimes, averaging 5.5% over two hours.

Unlike Dear Murderer’s, Speed’s audience built over the first hour, off a low-rating 25-54 lead-in of Jono and Ben (2.8%).

TVNZ 2 had the edge for most of the night because of Shortland Street’s resurgent popularity (9.3% – 14.1% of the four core demos) and the 7.30-8.30 dominance of Police Ten 7 and Surveillance Oz.

But TVNZ 2’s winning streak ended with Love Island at 9.30, which averaged 1.8% – 1.9% of the 18-39, 18-49 and 25-54 demos and 4.2% of household shoppers with kids, surrendering its slot to the second half of Speed.

Dear Murderer seems to have had a low-key critical reception, too, with the only online review being Stuff’s tepid verdict:  “It does a good job of slowly building up a portrait of a troubled but brilliant man with little regard for authority but great regard for the law itself. Definitely worth a look.”

But there was better news on the local drama front for TVNZ 2’s Filthy Rich, which won its time slot on Tuesday (3.8% of 25-54, 3.8% of 18-49, 3.5% of 18-39, 8.3% of HHS).

It achieved this off the back of an improved Australian Survivor (2.6% – 5.2% of the core demos), although the lead-in still lost to Three’s The Block NZ (8.8% – 14.2%) and NCIS (4.2% – 7.3%), and TVNZ 1’s Unreal Estate (2.2% – 5.0%),

Part of Filthy Rich’s appeal appears to be at the expense of TVNZ 1’s Body Hack, which scored a miserly 25-54 average of 1.9% while Three’s SVU averaged 2.1% — fewer than half the viewers of NCIS.

Wednesday’s edition of Australian Survivor was also up on the previous week, with 3.2% – 5.8% of the core demos compared to The Block NZ’s 6.1% – 9.1%, HOMEmade’s 2.5% – 4.7% and Rachel Hunter’s Tour of Beauty’s 1.5% – 3.3%.

NCIS: Los Angeles dominated the 8.30 hour with 5.0% of 25-54 while lead-out Hawaii Five-O improved with 3.1% — and that was against an unusually strong 20/20, which won the 9.30 hour in all the key demos (3.1% – 5.6%).