HD Ratings: Game’s Up for The Player

TV1’s The Player will end its run sooner than expected, with NBC cutting back its series order from 13 to only nine episodes.

The announcement comes as the Tuesday night drama starts to lose its lustre here, with this week’s ratings hitting a season low.

They averaged 3.0% – 4.7% of the core commercial demographics — which was enough to win the 8.30 hour in TV1’s target demo, 25-54, but was well down on previous weeks (last week it averaged 3.9% – 8.3% to win in three of the key demos).

Even so, it still out-played TV3’s The Blacklist (2.2% – 3.2%) and was competitive with TV2’s Step Dave (3.5% – 6.2%) in the 18-49 demo.

Another TV2 drama, Empire (3.1% – 6.7%), dominated at 9.30, where TV3’s 7 Days of Sport (1.4% – 1.8%) finished third after TV1’s Battle Creek (1.5% – 3.3%).

TV3’s The Block NZ: Villa Wars (5.6% – 7.6%) came off second best against TV1’s Highway Cops (4.1% – 8.1%) and Piha Rescue (6.6% – 8.9%) and seesawed with TV2’s My Kitchen Rules NZ (4.8% – 8.8%).

It was a similar story on Monday, when TV2’s dramas Wentworth and The Walking Dead also dominated.

But on Wednesday The Block regained the advantage and largely led the 7.30 hour while lead-out The X Factor UK had its biggest night yet, winning its two-hour slot in three of the key demos.

TV1’s The DNA Detectives (1.8% – 5.9%) was down sharply on its premiere while TV2’s The Big Bang Theory averaged 4.9% – 9.9% ahead of Mom’s 3.9% – 6.7% and off the back of Black-Ish’s 3.9% – 8.5%.

Despite having The Middle (6.6% – 12.4%) as its lead-in, Black-ish continues to undermine the rest of TV2’s line-up, hence it being dropped for re-runs of TBBT from November 11.

TV2 was back on top on Thursday, with Shortland Street, Police Ten 7, Highway Patrol, The Undateables and Arrow beating everything else in the four key demos.