HDTV Ratings: Christmas-New Year Catch-Up

TV2’s big-budget summer mini-series, Falling Skies, suffered a ratings fall between last week’s launch and last night’s instalment.

It retained most of the viewership that matters most to the network — 18-39 year-olds — but drew significantly fewer household shoppers with kids, and 25-54 and 18-49 year-olds.

The two-hour premiere was watched by 6.2% of 18-39s and the second double-episode, 5.9%.

But the sci-fi thriller slipped from 9% of 25-54s to 7.6%, from 8.5% of 18-49s to 7.1%, and from 8.5% of HHS/kids to 5.8%.

Last night’s movie on TV3, an SD re-run of The Green Mile, was astonishingly popular, winning its slot in all the key demos.

TV3’s Christmas-New Year ratings have been boosted by its Wednesday-Friday SD airings of X Factor Australia, which has been especially popular among HHS/kids.

And the network’s high-stakes investment in same-day HD telecasts of The X Factor USA paid off spectacularly, with the December 23 finale resoundingly out-rating the competition, including TV2’s premiere of The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

TV3’s weeknight HD re-runs of Modern Family have also rated extraordinarily well, often beating the SD re-runs of TV2’s The Middle, which was vastly more popular than the former when they originally aired.

TV One’s Christmas Eve re-run of The Bucket List in HD comfortably won its slot in most of the key demos while on Christmas Day TV3’s HD re-run of Die Hard had enough diehard fans to be competitive, although too few to trump TV2’s National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

While TV3’s Braveheart won the HD Boxing Day bout against TV2’s Poseidon, the network’s HD re-run of Speed two days later couldn’t keep up with the Falling Skies premiere.

But TV3 has continued to dominate Friday nights, with The Graham Norton Show solidly anchoring its entertainment line-up.

So far this week, TV3 has had the biggest prime-time share of 18-49 and 25-54 year-olds every night except Sunday, when Die Hard 2 drew roughly half the viewership of TV One’s Sunshine Cleaning premiere while its lead-in, the HD premiere of Coraline, finished third in its slot.