Far North Goes South

Three’s new local drama series Far North has shed nearly half the 25-54 year-old viewership that tuned into the premiere.

Monday’s second episode averaged 27,819 viewers in the network’s core commercial demographic — which was 21,512 fewer week-on-week.

It tumbled into third place at 8.30, after TVNZ 1’s The World Most Dangerous Roads (which trailed the competition last week) and TVNZ 2’s The Rookie (which, ironically, used to air on Three).

Far North averaged a 1.36 rating/10.20 share vs a 2.70 rating/18.49 share (55,311 viewers) for Roads and a 1.63 rating/12.73 share (33,349 viewers) for Rookie.

Far North lead-in The Traitors NZ largely held up week-on-week, with a 3.35 rating/18.37 share (68,716 viewers), a drop of 9,005 viewers.

It still out-rated TVNZ 2’s Taskmaster NZ (2.56 rating/14.99 share, 52,445 viewers), which shed about 10,000 viewers.

But TVNZ 1’s Fair Go and Border Patrol boosted their viewership: the former to 90,841 viewers (4.43 rating/25.47 share), the latter to a whopping 80,048 (3.9 rating/20.82 share).

TVNZ 1 continued its dominance at 9.30, with Inside the Superbrands (1.57 rating/16.11 share) beating Three’s Newshub Late (1.26 rating/15.30 share) and TVNZ 2’s The Rookie: Feds (1.08 rating/12.57 share).

The night’s most-watched programmes in the 25-54 demo were: 1 News, Seven Sharp, The Chase (5.30), Fair Go, Newshub Live at 6pm, Border Patrol, Shortland Street, The Traitors NZ, The Project and World’s Most Dangerous Roads.

The biggest free-to-air peak-hour demo shares were: TVNZ 1, 31.79; Three, 19.16; TVNZ 2, 15.49; Bravo, 5.71; Duke, 4.00; Eden, 3.16; Prime, 2.43; Rush, 2.21; HGTV, 1.21.