HD Ratings: Chernobyl Gambit Pays Off for Prime

Stripping HBO’s Chernobyl across five nights at 8.30 has boosted Prime’s ratings.

So far three of the episodes have screened. The premiere was the most watched but the others have maintained most of their viewership in the core commercial demographics and rated higher than what typically airs at 8.30 on the Sky-owned free-to-air channel.

Monday and Tuesday’s episodes each averaged 1.7% of the channel’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, and 1.0% and 1.2% respectively of 18-49s.

Of the all the core demos, Chernobyl’s been most popular with household shoppers with kids, averaging 2.0% on Monday and 2.3% on Tuesday.

Moreover, viewership has built over the hour, signalling more viewers have switched from other channels to watch it — no mean feat given the strength of the competition.

On Monday it faced off against the second half of TVNZ 2’s Australian Survivor (4.6% of 25-54s), TVNZ 1’s Prodigal Son (3.6%) and Three’s Grand Designs: The Street (3.7%), which helped lead-out Psychopath: With Piers Morgan to win its slot in the 25-54 and 18-49 demos (where it also was competitive in the other key demos against a resurgent Q+A on TVNZ 1 — the current affairs hour averaged 2.2% of 25-54s after last week’s disastrous low of 0.6%).

And on Tuesday Chernobyl contended with TVNZ 1’s Inside Oxford Street (4.0% on the back of Serengeti’s 5.3%), the tail end of Australian Survivor (4.5%) and Three’s  9-1-1 (3.5%).

9-1-1 won its slot in the other core demos as did lead-out Lost & Found, which was amazing given it was a repeat of a repeat.

Three won the biggest share of 18-39s and HHS/k on Tuesday while TVNZ 1 easily led with 25-54s and 18-49s.

On Monday, when coverage of the White Island eruption lifted 1 News at 6pm’s ratings, TVNZ 1 dominated in the same core demos but TVNZ 2 topped the others.