HD Heads-Up: August 16

➢➢ Having turned one Sunday night also-ran into a Friday night smash, TVNZ 2 will attempt the same feat with another. Season two of kids’ talent quest Little Big Shots will air 8.00 Fridays from August 31. The network hopes it will be as successful opposite Three’s faltering The Graham Norton Show as Ellen’s Game of Games. The latter’s been up and down in the ratings but in the past couple of week has out-rated repeats of Norton, partly thanks to terrific ratings for lead-in The Simpsons. Last week TVNZ 2 won Friday in all the core commercial demographics, with the ‘toon averaging 6.0% – 9.2% of these demos — far higher figures than it achieved in its first-run Sunday night slots …

➢➢ However, key variables can influence the Friday night ratings, from live rugby on Sky to the enduring appeal of 7 Days. Last week neither was on the schedule, which was a fillip for TVNZ 2’s shows and gave Japandemonium a chance to build decently on its low-rating premiere before 7 Days’ August 31 return. It will be interesting to see if replacing first-run eps of The Simpsons with season 12 repeats will maintain Homer’s popularity. It seems an odd decision, even if the 18-year-old eps have been remastered in 16:9 HD — especially when more recent native HD eps continue to be stripped off-peak …

➢➢ TVNZ 2 and Three will have a weekend of free-to-air movie premieres on August 25-26: Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (Three, 8.50 Saturday), The BFG (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Sunday) and Underworld: Blood Wars (TVNZ 2, 9.10 Sunday). The AbFab premiere suggests Three is serious about rebuilding Saturday nights, now that America’s Got Talent is proving competitive, while The BFG is the latest Disney premiere to take on Three’s The Block (the reality show hammered both Finding Dory and The Jungle Book) …

➢➢ Other HD coming attractions that week will include:

• Frozen (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
• Orphan (Duke, 8.55 Saturday)
• Mechanic Resurrection (TVNZ 2, 10.45 Saturday)
• Nitro Circus: The Movie (Three, 10.45 Saturday)
• Inherent Vice (TVNZ 2, 12.40am Sunday)
• Spy (Three, 8.30 Sunday)
• Revolutionary Road (Maori TV, 8.30 Sunday)
• Knock Knock (TVNZ 2, 12.25am Monday)
• Escape Plan (Prime, 9.30 Monday)
• Terminator 2: The Director’s Cut (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday)
• Speed 2: Cruise Control (Three, 8.30 Thursday)
• That’s My Boy (Duke, 8.30 Friday) …

➢➢ Coming to TVNZ OnDemand from August 30 are: the interactive Kiwi whodunit, Alibi, in which viewers will be able to use social media evidence to help determine which of six suspects is the killer; and the acclaimed Channel 4 social experiment, Genderquake, in which 11 strangers of different gender identities and sexualities spend a week together to discover what divides and what unites them (The Guardian thought it “raw, funny, brittle and combative”) …

➢➢ On August 26 TVNZ will replace Cold Case with The Curious Mind, a new Nigel Latta series. It’s billed as “a fascinating journey to explore the miracles of the human mind with the help of BabyX, one of the most advanced Artificial Intelligence models on the planet”. Also new that week on TVNZ 1 will be the Tuesday night doco, The Accused, which “reveals the inside story of what happens where you are accused of a crime”. It will follow the season finale of Eat Well for Less …

➢➢ Airing 7.30 Saturdays on Prime from August 25 will be the three-part Martin Clunes series Secret Life Of Dogs while returning for new episodes that week will be American Housewife (TVNZ 2, 8.00 Wednesdays), The Great Australian Bake Off (Prime 7.30 Tuesdays) and The Unbeatables (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Thursdays).