HD Ratings: Mall Cop Robs Rookie

Three’s fast-tracking season of The Rookie was no defence against TVNZ 2’s re-run of the 10-year-old movie, Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

The latter started an hour earlier than Rookie, and held most of its audience from 7.30-9.20, which robbed the newcomer of viewers who otherwise might have switched over from TVNZ 2 at 8.30.

The Rookie averaged 3.4% of Three’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, compared to 4.2% for Mall Cop’s duration.

Tellingly, in the period where the two competed directly, the movie’s viewership improved from 4.2% – 4.4% whereas The Rookie’s slipped from 4.5% – 2.9%.

Yet The Rookie had a decent 25-54 lead-in from Grand Designs NZ, which won the 7.30 hour with a 5.6% average (and 4.3% of 18-49s).

Across all the core commercial demos, Mall Cop averaged 3.6% – 5.5% and won its slot with 18-39s and household shoppers with kids.

It helped lead-out God Friended Me to win with 25-54s and 18-49s but 18-39s opted for Three’s Hawaii’s Five-O; HHS/k split their vote between TVNZ 1’s The Force and the second half of GFM.

TVNZ 1 dominated at 6.00, with 1 News winning across the board, while lead-out Seven Sharp dwarfed The Project.

The network won the night with the biggest 25-54 and 18-49 shares, and almost pipped TVNZ 2, which won with 18-39s, for HHS/k.