HDTV Ratings: April 5-6

When will TV3 make the call Hawaii Five-0 fans dread?

Hawaii Five-0’s ratings dipped again last night, which must have TV3 programmers pondering the show’s future in primetime.

It drew only 4.6% of 18-49 year-olds, 5.1% of 25-54 year-olds and 4.3% of household shoppers with kids.

TV2’s competing HD comedies, The Big Bang Theory and Cougar Town, are pulling two-to-four times as many viewers in these demographics.

Big Bang is the country’s most popular comedy after Two and a Half Men, so is exceptionally fierce competition for whatever TV3 programmes opposite it.

But Hawaii Five-0’s days must be numbered given the drastic action TV3’s taken with its Sunday night line-up, where the similarly struggling House and The Good Wife have been jettisoned.

However, the network may tough it out with Five-0 until Sons of Anarchy ends its second-season run on May 4.

The HD bikie drama is still rating well, and while viewership has been dented by TV One’s resurrection of Beyond the Darklands, TV2’s Drop Dead Diva continues to be the biggest casualty of this counterprogramming, with its ratings having halved.

Meanwhile, Darklands presenter Nigel Latta’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Teenagers is neck-and-neck with Scrubs at 8pm.

On Tuesdays, Go Girls remains the biggest post-Shortland Street drawcard, with ratings of 13.9%-14.9% in the key demos.

But unlike Hawaii Five-0, its HD competition, NCIS: Los Angeles, slowly has been building its ratings to 7%+ in the 18-49 and 25-54 demos, and as high as 10.5% of HHS/kids.

NCIS: LA also is benefitting from an upsurge in the popularity of its HD lead-in, Missing Pieces, which on Tuesday was nearly as popular as TV2’s Hell’s Kitchen among HHS/kids.