HD Ratings: Local Shows Find Their Feet

Sunday’s premiere of Dancing With the Stars waltzed off with all the core commercial demographics while TVNZ 1’s bold new Kiwi drama The Bad Seed kicked off strongly.

From 7.00-8.30, DWTS averaged 10.8% of Three’s chief 25-54 demo (36.1% share), open-ing with 8.1%, closing with  11.5% and peaking with 12.1%.

It was also hugely popular in the other key demos, averaging 9.2% of 18-49s, 7.6% of 18-39s and 10.7% of household shoppers with kids.

DWTS faced stronger competition from TVNZ 1’s Hyundai Country Calendar and Sunday than it did from TVNZ 2’s My Kitchen Rules special.

The latter averaged 3.1% of 25-54s, 2.6% of 18-49s, 1.9% of 18-39s and 3.8% of HHS/k.

DWTS’ appeal helped lead-out The Mummy to win its slot in all the major demos except HHS/k, where the second half was out-rated by TVNZ 2’s repeat of Maleficent.

The network movie premiere averaged 4.5% of 25-54s, although viewership more than halved in the second hour.

The first hour faced The Bad Seed, which averaged 4.2% of 25-54s. It opened with 5.2% of 25-54s and closed with 2.7%; the decline was similar in the other demos.

While it was competitive with The Mummy from 8.30-9.15, the exodus in the final quarter-hour will have TVNZ 1 programmers on the edge of their seats tonight wondering if enough viewers will return over the next four nights to justify the unprecedented stripping of a Kiwi drama.

Stuff reckons the cast, “coupled with some atmospheric cinematography and spot-on pacing” gives Bad Seed “the potential to grow into a gripping, five-nights of appointment viewing” while the The Spinoff argues:

It’s exciting to think that local audiences finally have a show from here with values and virtues which feel connected to the international television zeitgeist.  The Bad Seed is not the finished product by any means, but it begs for a second season or related project, one which allows its team to evolve and the sinister power structure it covers to grow with them.

The double-billing of DWTS and The Mummy meant Three blitzed the competition in all the core demos, with shares of 28.0% – 32.3% for the night.

They capped Three’s 10th winning week in a row in the 25-54 demo, which was boosted by the season finale of Married at First Sight Australia averaging 211,700 25-54 year-olds across Three and Three +1 (38% share), making it the highest rating episode of the season and the most popular show ever to stream on ThreeNow.

“Live stream views increased 45% year-on-year while big screen viewing via platforms such as Freeview, Chromecast, AppleTV and VodafoneTV more than doubled compared to the previous season,” MediaWorks reports.