Easter Hatches Ratings Surprises

It wasn’t a happy Easter for The Bachelor NZ, with Monday’s episode getting crushed by the HD competition.

It averaged only 2.6% of Three’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, compared to 5.9% for TVNZ 1’s Saving Mr Banks and 6.6% for TVNZ 2’s My Kitchen Rules.

TBNZ’s low turnout also was bad news for lead-out The Wrong Girl, which averaged only 1.9% of 25-54s.

It was beaten by not only the second half of Saving Mr Banks and TVNZ 2’s The Undateables (3.5%) but also Prime’s network movie premiere of Age of Heroes (2.7%).

The second half of Prime’s movie also topped TVNZ 1’s APB (2.0%), TVNZ 2’s What Happens in Bali (1.4%) and Three’s Chicago Med (1.3%).

Age of Heroes also out-rated its lead-in, the season premiere of Doctor Who, which averaged 2.5% of 25-54s.

It finished fourth in the 7.30 hour but improved sharply on previous weeks; the rest of the season will air 7.30 Sundays.

Prime’s re-run of the 2016 Doctor Who Christmas Special on Easter Sunday didn’t fare as well in the 25-54 demo (0.2%) whereas Three’s umpteenth repeat of Titanic proved remarkably buoyant (4.0%).

Another evergreen, TVNZ 2’s Two Weeks Notice, was even more popular, with 4.2% off the back of MKR’s 5.2%.

But the network’s free-to-air premiere of Cinderella averaged only 4.0% of 25-54s and 3.5% of TVNZ 2’s chief demo, 18-49 year-olds — although that was competitive with Titanic and out-rated TVNZ 1’s Attenborough’s Birds of Paradise in both key demos.

TVNZ 1’s Broadchurch also took a hit against the movies, averaging 3.8% of 25-54s and 2.6% of 18-49s.

TVNZ 2 and Three seesawed with their Saturday night movies but the former dominated on Good Friday with Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, The Goonies and Guardians of the Galaxy — although Three’s Graham Norton Show still won its hour in the 25-54 demo.

And on Thursday TVNZ 2’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen largely ruled, losing only to TVNZ 1’s George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces and the latest Mrs Brown’s Boys special in the 25-54 stakes.

TVNZ 1’s Coronation Street marathon, with extra-long instalments on Thursday and Friday, didn’t boost viewership, with the former averaging 2.2% of 25-54s and the latter, 1.7%.