HD Ratings: Viewers React to Chernobyl

The first free-to-air broadcast of HBO’s Chernobyl rewarded Prime with competitive ratings on Sunday.

The Sky-owned channel is stripping the five-part series weeknights at 8.30.

The premiere averaged 2.9% of Prime’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, 1.7% of 18-49s, 1.1% of 18-39s and 2.2% of household shoppers with kids.

Compare this with the 0.6% – 1.2% the season final of The Brokenwood Mysteries averaged in the same demos the previous week.

Moreover, viewership over the hour was not only sustained but also rose in all the core commercial demos.

Three’s movie The Boss averaged 3.1% of 25-54s, TVNZ 2’s I, Tonya, 2.2% and TVNZ 1’s Your Home Made Perfect, 3.0%.

TVNZ 1 won the night with the biggest share of 25-54s but Three was tops in the 18-49 and HHS/k demos; only one-tenth of a rating point separated them in the 18-39 race, which TVNZ1 narrowly won.

It was the same on Saturday. Three’s Secret Life of Pets won its slot across the board but viewers switched over at the end to see the rest of TVNZ 1’s Britain’s Got Talent: The Champions rather than Three’s premiere of The Big Sick, which also lost to TVNZ 2’s repeat of Gravity.

TVNZ 1’s other premiere, Class Act, proved anything but in the ratings, shedding more than half of BGT’s lead-in across the key demos.

Three’s The Graham Norton Show bounced back on Friday to win its slot in the 25-54 and 18-49 demos but otherwise TVNZ 2 dominated with Shortland Street, Holidays Make You Laugh Out Loud, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and The Equalizer.

TVNZ 1 won Thursday night in the 25-54 and 18-49 demos with the return of George Clarke’s Amazing Specials and Love Your Home and Garden but TVNZ 2’s SS, Police Ten 7,  Neighbours at War and Travel Guides carried the night in the other core demos.