HD Ratings: TV2 Streets Ahead

TV2’s launch of Grandfathered was a grand hit on Monday, thanks to having the return of Shortland Street as its lead-in. 

Shorty’s hour-long season premiere was up 8% on last year’s. It averaged 13.2% – 14.6% of the core commercial demographics and helped its new sitcom stablemate to average 8.8% – 9.7%.

They and the movie Just Like Heaven (5.1% – 8.4%) ensured TV2 won the night in the four major demos, with 30%-plus channel shares in three of them.

TV2’s popularity was at the expense of TV3’s, whereas TV1 increased its share of its target 25-54 audience by a third compared to its Monday average in this demo.

Similarly, the second episode of Doctor Foster, which TV1 is stripping across the week, was up 33% on Sunday’s premiere.

It averaged 8.1% of 25-54s and won the hour in this demo as well as viewers 5+ (10.3%).

The return of Castle could only sustain half the viewership of Doctor Foster, averaging 3.1% – 4.3% of the key demos.

It seesawed with the second hour of TV3’s movie What Happens in Vegas, which averaged 3.1% – 3.5% of the core demos.

Lead-in House Rules suffered from starting halfway through Shortland Street: its 3.1% – 4.4% average was well down on previous episodes’.

As a result, TV3 lost 17% of its audience week-on-week while TV2 had the biggest night of the year so far, with a 31% peak-hour 18-49 share.