HD Ratings: Hot Start for The Block NZ Firehouse

Three’s season premiere of The Block NZ: Firehouse opened strongly on Monday and helped the return of Westside to win the 8.30 hour.

TBNZ was out-rated by TVNZ 2’s My Kitchen Rules but still posted impressive numbers, including 6.9% of 25-54 year-olds (versus 7.8% for MKR) and 6.5% of 18-49s (vs 6.7%).

It was also competitive in the 18-39 demographic, averaging 5.2% vs MKR’s 5.7%.

Only among household shoppers with kids did MKR have a wide lead: 10.4% vs TBNZ’s 7.5%.

TBNZ was well ahead of TVNZ 1’s Fair Go and Surveillance Dashcam in all the core demos and helped the season five premiere of Westside to dominate its time slot.

The Outrageous Fortune spin-off averaged 4.8% of 25-54s compared to 4.3% for TVNZ 2’s Mom and 3.8% for TVNZ 1’s Criminal Minds.

The 18-49 average was 4.6% vs 3.7% for Mom and 3.0% for Criminal Minds.

The trend continued at 9.30, when Westside lead-out Special Victims Unit won in all the core demos except 18-39.

Although Shortland Street delivered MKR a much stronger lead-in than The Project did TBNZ, Three’s newsmag was competitive with TVNZ 1’s Seven Sharp in the HHS/k demo and led it among 18-39s.

Despite strong launches for TBNZ and Westside, TVNZ 2 carried the night with the biggest key demo shares.