HD Ratings: Weekend Round-Up

Sky’s Super Rugby coverage ankle tapped the weekend’s free-to-air ratings but TVNZ 1 dropped the ball with Sunday’s international T20 game.

The White Ferns vs Australia clash averaged 2.9% of the network’s core 25-54 demographic compared to 3.3% for TVNZ 2’s Captain America: Civil War and 3.1% for Three’s Ghostbusters: Answer the Call.

In the other key commercial demo, 18-49 year-olds, the cricket averaged 2.3%, Captain America 2.6% and Ghostbusters 2.4%.

Despite Captain America clocking up a higher overall average, because it started an hour earlier, Ghostbusters comprehensively out-rated it in every quarter-hour segment except one when the two went head-to-head in each demo.

Otherwise, 1 News at 6pm and Three’s Married at First Sight Australia ruled their slots.

Three won the night in the 25-54 and 18-49 stakes while TVNZ 1 edged out its rivals for 18-39 and household shopper honours.

Weekend Super Rugby games on Sky Sport 1 out-rated or seesawed with their FTA competition, with 3.7% of 25-54s on Saturday and 2.5% on Friday.

But TVNZ 2’s rescheduling of The Amazing Race Australia from Sunday to Friday nights has paid off, with the show beating or level-pegging with TVNZ 1’s The Repair Shop and relegating Three’s RoboCop to the scrapheap.

Big Fat Gypsy Weddings also has been a Friday night hit for TVNZ 1, with significantly higher 25-54 and 18-49 averages than TVNZ 2’s 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and Three’s movie.

TVNZ 1 won Friday’s biggest shares of all the key demos while Three narrowly won Saturday night’s 18-49 and 25-54 races due to its news hour being unusually competitive with 1 News.