HDTV Ratings: August 22-23

Last night’s HD premiere of TV One’s Chef on a Mission topped the ratings with 25-54 year-olds.

It narrowly won the 8.30pm hour opposite TV2’s HD drama Grey’s Anatomy, which drew 10% of this audience compared to Chef’s 10.7%.

TV3’s HD option, NCIS, rated 7.6% on the back of lead-in Under the Grill failing to fire with only a 5.8% rating.

In the other key demographics, Grey’s easily out-rated its competitors, with 12.1% of TV2’s target audience, 18-39 year-olds, 10.5% of 18-49 year-olds and 14.3% of household shoppers with kids.

At 9.30pm the gap was even wider between Grey’s sister show, Private Practice, and TV3’s Hamish & Andy’s Gap Year: the latter’s highest rating – 5.4% of 18-39 year-olds – still couldn’t match Practice’s lowest, 6.6% of 25-54 year-olds.

On Monday, TV3’s HD repeat of Transporter 2 was competitive with TV2’s The Mentalist, except among HHS/kids, where the gulf was nearly six rating points.

But it drew 12.8% of 25-54 year-olds (versus The Mentalist’s 12.9%), 12.9% of 18-49 year-olds (vs 13.1%), and 12.7% of 18-39 year-olds (vs 12.9%).

The trend largely continued in Transporter 2’s second half, opposite TV2’s Body of Proof, while TV One’s season finale of Castle finished a distant third, with 5.8% of 25-54 year-olds and 4.1% of HHS/kids.