HD Ratings: Will Story Turn the Page for TV3?

TV3’s new nightly current affairs show Story will screen in HD — but not at first.

When the Campbell Live successor goes to air in six weeks’ time it will be in SD.

But MediaWorks is working towards upgrading all of its news and current affairs output to HD later this year.

It’a a pity the infrastructure won’t be in place for Story’s bow, as the Duncan Garner-Heather du Plessis-Allan hosted half-hour will need all the advantages it can get to win back Campbell Live viewers from Seven Sharp.

While fill-in fodder Come Dine With Me NZ was competitive on Monday against Seven Sharp, Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s episodes tanked.

They averaged 2.9% – 4.8% of the key demographics to  draw roughly half as many viewers as Seven Sharp.

But both were dwarfed by a resurgent Shortland Street, although on Tuesday, when Seven Sharp scored record ratings, there was only a point between them in the 25-54 demo.

Seven Sharp has the advantage of a much bigger lead-in from One News, which this week has been 2-3 times as popular as 3 News.

But post-news it’s TV2 that dominates with its untouchable combo of Shortland Street and My Kitchen Rules.

On Tuesday, TV1 easily out-rated TV3 from 7.30-8.30 but competition was much fiercer from 8.30-10.30, when TV3’s NCIS and NCIS: LA beat TV1’s The Mentalist (except in the 25-54 race) and Aquarius.

However, neither of the crime dramas could rival TV2’s Empire (7.0% – 9.9%) and even its ageing lead-out, Grey’s Anatomy (3.5% – 5.4%) won three of the four key demos.

As a result, TV2 won the night with commanding shares in all the major demos except 25-54:

On Wednesday, TV2’s The Big Bang Theory and 2 Broke Girls largely ruled, but TV1’s Kids Behind Bars (4.5% – 6.8%) won the 9.30 hour in the commercial demos as well as 5+.

TV2’s Once Upon a Time averaged 3.0% – 3.8% to comprehensively beat TV3’s re-run of Repo Men.

As a result, TV3’s ignominious channel shares were about half those of TV2’s (24.8% – 32.7%) while TV1 again topped the 25-54 vote: