HD Ratings: Criminal Minds Still Going Great Guns

For the last few years TVNZ 1 has been trying to find a top-rating successor for its ageing Criminal Minds.

But none has rated as well, and season 13 is proving as formidable as its predecessors.

Last week’s season premiere didn’t win its slot but did out-rate the first hour of Three’s movie 21 Jump Street in the 25-54 demographic (4.8% vs 3.9%) and was competitive with TVNZ 2’s one-off special, The Sexbots Are Coming (4.9%).

Sexbots rated higher than the series it replaced — Young Sheldon and Will & Grace — in all the core commercial demos, and was twice as popular among household shoppers with kids.

It will be interesting to see how well tonight’s premieres of The Resident and another ageing warhorse, Grey’s Anatomy, fare opposite Criminal Minds and its stablemate, Lucifer, which last week narrowly out-rated the season eight finale of The Walking Dead in the 25-54 and 18-49 demos.

Variety reports US viewership of TWD was the lowest for a season finale since season one — which may be why showrunner Scott M Gimple is signalling a new direction for season nine:

“We knew for a long time that this season was, in many ways, the end of a chapter of the show … The differences that people will be seeing in season nine and beyond are going to be pronounced. It’s going to be a very different show with characters handling very different issues, challenges and threats than we’ve seen before. These characters will be different in a lot of ways.”

Another TVNZ 1 veteran, Fair Go, and Border Security rated competitively in the 25-54 stakes against TVNZ 2’s My Kitchen Rules, which averaged 6.9%, while Three’s All Star Family Feud finished third with 3.4%.

TVNZ 1 won the night with 25-54s but TVNZ 2 dominated in the other demos.