HD Ratings: Sky Spectre Haunts Networks

Sky Movies’ premiere of the James Bond movie Spectre dented the free-to-air debuts of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I and Gone Girl.

Spectre rated above average for an 8.30 Sunday premiere on Sky’s premium movies channel, averaging 2.3% of 18-49 year-olds and 2.2% of 25-54 year-olds.

The FTA movies rated higher but Spectre’s popularity would still have had an impact on their viewership.

They were evenly matched, with Mockingjay I and Gone Girl each averaging 4.1% of 25-54s while the former had the edge on the latter with 18-49s.

TV One’s Hillary pipped both with 25-54s — it lost the hour to each but overall recorded a higher average than their two hour-plus broadcasts — and trailed among 18-49s.

TV3’s House Rules, in its first Sunday night broadcast of the season, was competitive with TV2’s Australian Survivor in these key demos but neither could match the pulling power of TV One’s Sunday.

TV One won the night with 25-54s but TV2 was tops in the other core commercial demos.

On Saturday, Prime’s delayed coverage of the All Blacks match helped it to flatten the free-to-air competition.

The game averaged 6.9% of 25-54s and 5.6% of 18-49s to win its FTA slot in these key demographics and viewers aged 5+.

It was beaten only by Sky Sports 1’s live coverage: 9.3% of 25-54s and 8.5% of 18-49s.

TV One and TV3 were hit hardest, with the former’s The Holiday Airport averaging only 1.8% of its target 25-54 audience and the latter’s re-run of The Siege, 1.9%.

Meanwhile, TV One’s premiere of The Great Pottery Throw Down drew half the 25-54 and 18-49 viewership of lead-in Hyundai Country Calendar.

TV2 wasn’t as vulnerable, with its family movie, The Chronicles of Narna: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe proving to be effective counter programming and helped TV2 to win the night in all the core commercial demos.

Below are the primetime ratings tables for Sunday in the 25-54, 18-49 and 5+ contests (the first number under the programme’s title is the rating average and the second number the channel share):