HD Ratings: Ant and Dec’s Takeaway Not Hot Stuff But Challenges Chefs

TV2 viewers weren’t carried away by Saturday’s HD premiere of Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.

It rated as poorly as the series it replaced, Two and a Half Men (re-runs) and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

The variety hour averaged only 3.3% of TV2’s target audience, adults 18-39, and was most popular with household shoppers: 6.0% compared to 3.6% of adults 18-49 and 3.5% of adults 25-54.

Still, it was competitive with TV One’s MasterChef MasterClass, which averaged only 3.2% – 6.0% of key demos compared to lead-in Country Calendar’s 4.0% – 8.1%.

TV3’s Ice Road Truckers replacement, Missing Pieces and Saving Gen Y, are experiencing mixed fortunes: re-runs of the former averaged 4.5% -7.5% but the latter only 2.2% – 3.3%.

The network’s CSI combo also struggled against TV2’s Spider-Man 3 re-run as did its Friday HD light-ent line-up against The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

But on Thursday TV3’s Bones bounced back, averaging 6.6% – 13.0% to beat Once Upon a Time (5.3% – 10.4%) but not TV One’s Britcom re-runs (except among HHS).

TV2’s new-look Sunday largely had the edge on TV3’s HD comedies but couldn’t top TV One’s Sunday and MasterChef NZ.

Renters averaged 6.2% – 10.6%, which was enough to beat Sunday among HHS and TV3’s Simpsons re-run across all key demos.

But the 7.30 Simpsons was more popular than TV2’s Big Bang Theory repeat with adults 18-39 and HHS.

TV2’s season premiere of Mike & Molly, however, crushed Family Guy: the former averaged 7.4% – 10.8% and the latter 6.0% – 6.9%.

However, MasterChef NZ won the 7.30 hour with 9.1% – 14.6%.

Lead-out Packed to the Rafters out-rated TV2 and TV3’s movies among adults 25-54 and averaged 4.2% – 10.3% across the board while House Husbands rated 1.9% – 6.6%.