HD Ratings: Battle of the Tans

The shine came off Magnum P.I. on Wednesday when Three’s Hawaiian crime hit lost its time slot for the first time in three weeks.

Ratings for lead-in Lego Masters Australia also were lower than previous weeks.

But the show was still sturdy enough to easily win the 7.30 hour in all the core commercial demographics, with averages of 3.8% – 8.7%.

However, this wasn’t enough to sustain Magnum against TVNZ 2’s tanned competition, Tantastic: 50 Shades of Orange.

The tabloid documentary averaged 3.0% of TVNZ 2’s target audience, 18-49 year-olds, vs Magnum’s 2.4%, and 3.8% of Three’s key viewership, 25-54s, vs Magnum’s 3.2%.

Magnum still out-rated TVNZ 1’s superior crime drama, the excellent The Bay, which continues to languish for the audience it deserves, with merely 2.0% of 25-54s and 1.9% of 18-49s.

This was down sharply from the previous week, due to Location Location Location shedding two rating points to average 4.1% of 25-54s.

Location and Lego both were lower in this demo because of an uptick in TVNZ 2’s Young Sheldon and The Big Bang Theory, with the latter having its penultimate broadcast before tonight’s series finale (TVNZ 2, 7.30).

YS averaged 4.9% of 25-54s (vs 4.1% the previous week) and TBBT, 4.4% (vs 3.4%).

Prime had a better night, with Top Gear averaging 1.5% of 25-54s and Game of Thrones scoring its biggest viewership of the season, 1.3%.

It finished well behind Coronation Street (2.1%) but challenged Whiskey Cavalier (1.7%) and out-rated 1 News Tonight and Newshub Late (0.8%).

TVNZ 1’s 6pm news easily beat Three’s while Seven Sharp again sliced up The Project.

In a tightly contested night, TVNZ 1 had the biggest shares of 25-54s and 18-49s while TVNZ 2 narrowly ruled with 18-30s and Three with household shoppers with kids.