HDTV Ratings: August 17

Underbelly NZ's Marty Johnstone (Dan Musgrove)

Kiwi drama producers and NZ On Air will be celebrating this morning after a new local series topped last night’s ratings.

TV3’s premiere of Underbelly NZ: Land of the Long Green Cloud won its slot in the key age groups — 25-54, 18-49, 18-39 — while TV One commission Nothing Trivial bounced back after last week’s big dip.

Underbelly NZ drew 9.9% of 25-54 year-olds, 9.7% of 18-49 year-olds and 10.6% of 18-39 year-olds, narrowly beating TV2’s HD hit, The Walking Dead, in each demographic.

But it lost among household shoppers with kids, where it could manage only 7.7% against Dead’s 11.6%.

How much higher might it have rated at 8.30pm, where TV3 originally scheduled it, we’ll never know because lead-in, Rocked the Nation 3: 100 NZ Sporting Moments, suffered from being shifted to that slot when it would have better suited a 7.30 kick-off.

Nothing Trivial, meanwhile, finished second in the key demos and won the second half of its hour with 25-54 year-olds.

It drew 11.1% of this demo (compared with 8.6% the previous week), 8.8% of 18-49 year-olds (7%) and 13.1% of HHS/kids (8.2%).