HD Ratings: Agent Anna’s Rockin’ Robyn Ratings

Thursday’s HD premiere of Robyn Malcolm’s first NZ drama series since Outrageous Fortune didn’t rate through the roof for TV One but still proved a sound investment.

Agent Anna, a comedy about a fledgling, middle-aged real estate agent, averaged 4.4% – 11.0% of the key demographics, including 8.6% of TV One’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds.

It never won the slot outright but was competitive with TV3’s HD rival Bones, which averaged 5.3% – 9.1%, and out-rated it among household shoppers.

And the series that rated higher than both, TV2’s Embarrassing Bodies, was little more than a point ahead of Anna in all the key demos except TV2’s 18-39.

Anna’s first reviews were largely positive.

“It suffers from the usual opening episode issue of needing to dump a lot of exposition on the audience and introduce the cast of characters,” wrote Nick Grant in the NZ Herald.

“Some of the writing is strictly by-the-numbers, but there are also some sharp lines that promise better things to come.”

“Malcolm catches the vulnerability, the humanity, at the core of Anna Kingston, and she sells the despair that this former housewife is going through,” said Stuff’s Chris Philpott.

“It’s a fine performance, evocative of the performances of (and I don’t mean to just point out middle-aged actresses) Laura Linney on The Big C or Laura Dern on Enlightened.”

Meanwhile, Winner and Losers had another poor outing on Wednesday, when it averaged only 3.3% – 6.5% against a double-episode of The Big Bang Theory (7.5% – 12.5%), while The Middle out-rated the first half of The Block but the latter was more popular than Hot in Cleveland.

Winners’ low ratings suggest Dominion Post critic Jane Bowron may be right in her appraisal of its appeal: “The problem with Winners and Losers is that it isn’t really primetime viewing material.

“This tame, gal-pal romp is so predictable, so determined to promote family values and be heartwarming, that it would be better suited to a Home and Away 5.30pm, pre-news bulletin time slot.”

TV One also is struggling 8.30 Tuesday, with Africa failing to fire.

The second episode averaged 4.2% – 8.5% compared with 4.7% – 7.8% for NCIS and 8.3% – 10.3% for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

At 9.30, NCIS: Los Angeles averaged 3.5% – 6.7%.