HD Ratings: Below the Balboa for Creed

Three’s network movie premiere of Rocky sequel Creed was laid low by the competition on Thursday.

It averaged an abysmal 1.2% of Three’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, and only 1.0% of 18-49s.

The latest in the Rocky Balboa saga wasn’t helped by Jono and Ben’s bantam-weight lead-ins: 2.9% of 25-54 and 1.9% of 18-49.

But even with similar leads-ins last week, X-Men: Days of Future Past mustered 3.7% of 25-54 and 3.1% of 18-49.

Last night both demos overwhelmingly opted for TVNZ 2’s law-and-order line-up. It scored 25-54 averages of 7.6% for Police Ten 7, 6.6% for Random Breath Testing and Sensing Murder, and 3.4% for Lethal Weapon.

TVNZ 2 scooped the night in all the core commercial demos while TVNZ 1’s extra-long MasterChef Australia averaged 4.4% of 25-54 and lead-out Coronation Street, 1.9%.

Creed was one of several free-to-air movie premieres to suffer crushing defeats this week.

On Sunday, TVNZ 1’s Sunday Theatre finale, In Dark Places, beat both Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (TVNZ 2) and X-Men: Apocalypse (Three).

In Dark Places won its slot in all the key demos, and was most popular among 25-54 (5.4%) and household shoppers with kids (5.7%); it also was the year’s highest-rating Sunday Theatre drawcard.

Batman v Superman averaged only 2.1% of 25-54 (vs 4.1% for X-Men: Apocalypse) and 1.7% of 18-49 (vs 3.3%).

And on Saturday, Three’s FTA premiere of Ice Age: Collision Course out-rated TVNZ 2’s repeat of Bedtime Stories but lost in all the core demos except 18-39 to TVNZ 1’s Britain’s Got Talent final.

Sky Sport 1’s live Super Rugby coverage hit all the networks hard, with key demo averages of 3.8% – 4.9%.