HD Ratings: Chippies Hammer Chefs

Despite being refreshed for TV2, My Kitchen Rules NZ is struggling against TV3’s The Block NZ: Villa Wars.

Tuesday’s episode lost to The Block in all the commercial demographics while the latter has surged in popularity partly because it’s no longer facing like-minded competition in the form of Reno Rumble.

Headlines about one of the contestants facing deportation also have boosted its profile.

The Block averaged 7.3% – 11.1%, with the second half also beating TV1’s Piha Rescue (5.9% – 9.1%).

The Block’s dominance helped The Blacklist (3.3% – 6.7%) to rebound from the low-rating season premiere to beat TV2’s Step Dave (3.5% – 6.6%) in all the key demos except 18-39.

That led to Blacklist lead-out 7 Days of Sport bouncing back at 9.30 with a 4.5% – 6.1% average, which is huge for TV3 at that time of night.

It out-rated TV2’s Empire (2.2% – 5.2%) in all the key demos and topped TV1’s Battle Creek (2.6% – 5.8%), except in the 25-54 demo (which the latter won), while the two tied for the 18-49 vote.

Battle Creek was delivered a decent lead-in from The Player, which averaged 3.9% – 8.3% to win the 8.30 hour in three of the core demos.

TV1’s Highway Cops also is rating strongly at 7.30, where it averaged 7.7% – 12.9% to win the slot.

As a result, TV1 won the night outright while TV2 and TV3 were unusually competitive: