HD Ratings: TVNZ 1’s New Lion King
November 13, 2019 
6 Comments
TVNZ 1’s Tuesday night premiere of Serengeti savaged the competition, winning its time slot in all the core commercial demographics and rewarding the broadcaster for locking up a long-term deal for BBC natural history series.
It averaged 6.1% of the network’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, 5.2% of 18-49s, 3.5% of 18-39s and 7.6% of household shoppers with kids.
In the 25-54 and 18-49 demos, these averages were roughly similar to the previous week’s Dog Squad and Highway Cops but the 18-39 and HHS/k averages were up sharply.
Serengeti’s lead-out, I AM, benefitted from the wildlife programme’s popularity, averaging 3.4% – 6.8% of the core demos to win its slot, which flowed through to 20/20 topping all the core demos as well.
Three’s The Block Australia fared better against Serengeti than TVNZ 2’s Survivor Australia. It out-rated the castaways show in all the key demos, although three-tenths of a point separate them in the 18-39 race.
Three’s 9-1-1 also drew sharply more viewers than Survivor and its lead-out, Mom.
Prime’s Spending Secrets of the Royal Family averaged only 1.1% of 25-54s at 7.30 while its lead-out, Five Bedrooms, mustered merely 0.3%.
Earlier, TVNZ 1’s Seven Sharp challenged Shortland Street’s supremacy, with 5.5% of 25-54 vs 5.7%, and 6.6% of HHS/k vs 6.9%, while 1 News at 6pm crushed Three’s Newshub Live.
As a result, TVNZ 1 spectacularly won the night across all the key demos, with massive shares of 27.7% – 31.1%.
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November 14, 2019 at 8:09 am
Phil, have there been any ratings releases on the RWC 3rd/4th and Final?? Normally there is crowing about how many watched it – and yet there seems to be silence this tournament. How did TVNZ fare?
Hey, Mike. The ratings were amazing. I mentioned them in this post and didn’t elaborate as I presumed other media already would have covered them in depth by then.
Those were for the semi-finals werent they? What about the NZ-Wales bronze? And the actual final itself? Neither seem to have been discussed in the media or even in a TVNZ press release, post finals.
Have tracked down these figures: the delayed bronze match averaged 9% of 25-54s, 6.6% of 18-49s, and 8.7% of viewers 5+. Pretty good numbers given it aired post-10pm and wasn’t live. The live final averaged 12.4% of 25-54s, 10% of 18-49s and 13.7% of 5+.
That will disappoint NZ Rugby. Spark Sport had 216k subs so about the same numbers as SkySport would have had for the Bledisloe. Pay + delayed FTA for the finals weekend would have been c1m viewers for the last RWC. Nowhere near that – even for the bronze. Goes to show that the appetite for rugby hasnt expanded despite the hopes of the ex-CEO of Spark.
Mike – it’s an interesting one. NZ Rugby probably won’t mind as much as you’d think. They didn’t have anything to do with the selling of rights to Spark/TVNZ. That’s all done through IMG and World Rugby. I believe they would have much, much rather Sky have got the rights. The FTA ratings were very good, but I suspect NZR’s decision to re sign with Sky for its own product has been vindicated.