HD Ratings: MasterChef Slices and Dices The Block

For two nights in a row, TVNZ 2’s MasterChef Australia has out-rated Three’s The Block NZ in the core commercial demographics.

Tuesday’s episode averaged 4.8% of 25-54 year-olds (vs 3.2% for The Block) and 3.2% of 18-49s (vs 2.6%).

Wednesday’s averaged 4.2% of 25-54s (vs 3.5%) and 3.0% of 18-49s (vs 2.7%).

MasterChef won the 7.30 hour outright on Tuesday but both shows were beaten on Wednesday by TVNZ 1’s resurgent Beat the Chasers, which averaged 5.1% of 25-54s and 3.1% of 18-49s.

Three took an even bigger hit on Wednesday with its crime dramas sinking below 1.0% of the key demos.

LA’s Finest, which had been rating competitively, averaged 0.9% of 25-54s and 0.7% of 18-49s, and Hawaii Five-O 0.6% / 0.1%.

The latter was a casualty of Sky Sport 2’s ICC’s World Test Championship coverage, which averaged 1.8% of 25-54s for the first hour.

LA’s Finest was no match for TVNZ 1’s Location Location Location (3.7% / 3.0%) and was undermined by MasterChef overlapping the start.

It was even beaten by Prime’s Massive Engineering Mistakes, which averaged 1.2% of 25-54s and 0.9% of 18-49s on the back of 1.2% / 1.1% for Traffic Cops.

TVNZ 2’s Russell Howard Stands Up to the World held up, with 2.2% / 1.6% (it rated lower than its premiere but maintained its audience over the hour).

TVNZ 1 won Wednesday’s biggest demo shares by a wide margin while Three finished behind TVNZ 2.

Tuesday’s tussle was much tighter among all three networks, with TVNZ 1 winning in both key demos but barely a point separating second place-getter TVNZ 2 and Three.

TVNZ 2’s Amazing Grace and Three’s mid-season premiere of Emergency were neck-and-neck but TVNZ 1’s The Dog House led the 8.30 hour.

And at 9.30, TVNZ 2’s Naked Attraction barely beat TVNZ 1’s Coronation Street and Three’s NCIS: Los Angeles.