HD Ratings: Murder Mystery Mesmerises

Sunday’s interview with Scott Guy’s widow Kylee on the 10th anniversary of his murder decimated last night’s MasterChef Australia and Big Brother.

The current affairs scoop scored bumper averages in all the core commercial demographics and drew two-to-three times as many viewers as the Australian reality rivals.

It averaged 10.4% of TVNZ 1’s 25-54 demo vs 3.9% for MasterChef and 2.9% for Big Brother.

And it was nearly as popular as lead-ins 1 News at Six (10.8%) and Hyundai Country Calendar (10.9%).

It also ensured Beat the Chasers topped the 8.30 hour for the second consecutive week, leaving the movies on TVNZ 2 and Three reeling.

TVNZ 2’s audacious primetime resurrection of the undistinguished 2003 release League of Extraordinary Gentlemen rated better than it deserved to opposite Three’s re-run of Deadpool, bettering it in the 5+ and 25-54 demos, and splitting the household shoppers-with-kids vote.

As a result, Deadpool averaged the same number of 25-54 viewers as the series it replaced, Head High, slightly fewer 18-49s and more 18-39s.

Amazingly, League rated marginally higher than the previous week’s London Has Fallen in the 25-54 and 18-39 demos, and averaged the same number of 18-49s.

The free-to-air channels took a hit on Saturday from Sky’s Super Rugby coverage, with TVNZ 1’s 1 News and Jamie Keep Cooking and Carry On dominating before kick-off and the other channels’ movies splitting viewers afterwards.

Switching slots for The Hotel Inspector and All Round to Mrs Brown’s helped neither, with each show recording the same 25-54 average of 1.5%.

Sky won the night’s biggest shares of all the key demos.

On Friday, TVNZ 1’s The Repair Shop continued its unstoppably popular run, with 7.5% of 25-54s and 5.4% of 18-49s, but Three’s movie Unstoppable was unbeatable from 8.30.

Here are Sunday’s most-watched primetime programmes on the free-to-air HD channels (excluding +1 and in order of their 5+ rating and audience share):