HD Ratings: The Spinoff Spins Out

Three is relegating The Spinoff TV from 9.45 Fridays to 10.45 Fridays for the rest of its run.

The pop culture half-hour spun off the website has rated dismally since its debut, despite being delivered a substantial lead-in from 7 Days.

And on Saturday it was blasted in the NZ Herald for being $700,000 worth of publicly-funded “self-proclaimed nonsense“.

More damningly, it’s the chink in Three’s hitherto armour-clad Friday night line-up that last week, for the first time in months, was vulnerable to the competition.

The attack came on two fronts: from Sky Sport 1’s Super Rugby coverage, which dominated the 25-54 demographic from 8.30-9.30, and TVNZ 2’s rejigged line-up, with the return of controversial dating show Naked Attraction winning the 9.30 hour in all the core commercial demos.

With Three’s target 25-54 demo, it averaged 5.0% vs The Spinoff TV’s 1.9% (which squandered 7 Days’ 5.2% lead-in).

7 Days normally wins its 9.00-9.15 slot outright but last week lost its last quarter hour as viewers switched over to Naked Attraction.

Three’s also weakened its line-up with re-runs of The Graham Norton Show at the same time TVNZ 2 launched Ellen’s Game of Games in head-on competition off the back of a surging The Simpsons.

Friday’s episode of the long-in-the-tooth ‘toon averaged two-to-three times the viewership of Three’s The Project and helped Games to average a competitive 3.9% – 4.6% of the core demos.

It out-rated Norman across the board but couldn’t top Super Rugby except among household shoppers with kids.

Three’s response is to replace The Spinoff with new episodes of Fail Army, but with all the publicity surrounding Naked Attraction, that seems doomed counter programming, especially when the dating show’s viewership built over the hour.