HD Ratings: Wedding Cake-Beefcake Combo Tops

Married at First Sight Australia and the movie Baywatch proved a perfect match for Three on Sunday, helping the network to win the night in three of the four core commercial demographics (24-54, 18-49, household shoppers with kids).

And it only lost the 18-39 demo by three-tenths of a rating point to TVNZ 2’s The Bachelorette NZ and Walk of Shame.

MAFS out-rated BNZ in the 25-54 and 18-49 races but the latter had the edge with 18-39 and HHS/k.

Neither could defeat TVNZ 1’s Hyundai Country Calendar at 7.00, except MAFS with 18-39s.

1 News and HCC set up the network for a solid night, with a largely competitive Sunday at 7.30 and a decently performing Gold Digger at 8.30.

The latter won the hour with HHS/k and seesawed with the competition in the 25-54 demo, and was narrowly more popular than the movies with 18-49s.

Duke’s fast-tracked Top Gear also rated soundly at 8.30, with 1.8% of 25-54s and 1.2% of 18-49s.

TVNZ 1’s Saturday season premiere of Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeway won the 7.00-8.30 hour in all the key demos except 18-39, who divided themselves between TVNZ 2’s movie Nacho Libre and Three’s America’s Got Talent: The Champions.

Ant & Dec’s success follows the duo’s failure to rate on TVNZ 2 but their profile on TVNZ 1 staple Britain’s Got Talent clearly made the network’s viewers more receptive to their own variety show.

A&D averaged 3.8% of 25-54, 2.7% of 18-49s and 4.1% of HHS/k, with viewership in each of these demos holding steady over 90 minutes.

Lead-out Britain’s Best Home Cook, however, lost to both the tail end of America’s Got Talent and the start of TVNZ 2’s The Hangover Part II and Three’s Da Vinci Code.

Nonetheless, TVNZ 1 won the night’s highest shares of 25-54s, 18-49s and HHS/k.

Meanwhile, the Star Trek movie franchise continues to live long and prosper, with Three’s 2009 reboot dominating Friday night in the core age demos.

Only HHS/k abandoned ship midway to beam aboard the season premiere of TVNZ 1’s Call the Midwife while 25-54s crossed over to TVNZ 2’s 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown before switching back.

Another TVNZ 1 newcomer, The Repair Shop, rated well at 7.30, pipping TVNZ 2’s Travel Guides with 3.1% of the network’s 25-54 target, 2.1% of 18-49s and 3.4% of HHS/k.

Three won the night in the key age demos and TVNZ 1 with HHS/k.