HDTV Ratings and Reviews: Panic at Rock Island, Coasters

Last night’s HD world premiere of Panic at Rock Island won its time slot with TV2’s core audience, 18-39 year-olds, although viewership dropped sharply over the two hours.

It opened with a 10.4 rating and ended with a 6.7, to average 8.3%, compared with Cast Away’s 8.1% on TV3.

With 18-49 year-olds, it averaged 8.1% (vs Cast Away’s 8%) and with 25-54 year-olds, 8.6% (vs 7.8%).

It was most popular with household shoppers with kids, drawing 13.6% (vs 7.9%) – although TV One’s Undercover Boss still dominated the 8.30pm-9.30pm hour with 14% of this demo.

In his On the Box blog, Stuff’s Chris Philpott wrote: “I’m not ashamed to say that I was among those who made it through the whole thing – even if it did end up being a generic take on most virus outbreak movies.

“Despite fairly high production standards and a fairly talented cast that included Grant Bowler, a vastly underutilised Anna Hutchison and Underbelly’s Vince Colosimo, Panic at Rock Island managed to fall into the same traps as most of the films it derived from: a family-centred morality tale, plot points that dealt with governmental abuse of power, and a number of mind-boggling scenes that left me scratching my head.”

Meanwhile, TV One’s Saturday night HD hit, Coasters, which The Dominion Post this week  dubbed a “huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ treat”, dipped in popularity at the weekend: it still won the 7pm slot in the major demos but drew only 9.2% of the network’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, versus 13.3% the previous week.

Its channel share also was down week on week, from 38.3% to 33.5%.

The decline presumably was due to interest starting to peak in live coverage of the third One Day International between NZ and Pakistan on both Sky Sport 1 and Prime.