HDTV Ratings: December 7-12

The ratings mileage TV One continues to exact from HD re-runs of Criminal Minds verges on criminal when superior first-run dramas, like stablemate Southland, draw half as many viewers.

Last night’s repeat of the lurid procedural was watched by 8.2% of TV One’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, compared to 3.3% for SD lead-out Southland.

It was a similar trend in other key demos, with the widest gap being among household shoppers with kids: 7.6% opted for Criminal Minds and only 1.5% for Southland.

Yet only last week, Southland drew more HHS/kids than Criminal Minds and rated higher in the other demos.

It seems most deserted the terrific series — a Hill Street Blues meets Homicide: Life on the Street — for the season finale of the pedestrian Rookie Blue, which last night posted higher ratings than for the previous week.

Meanwhile, TV2’s HD crimefighter, The Mentalist, easily won the 8.30 hour with 11.4% of 25-54s, 11.6% of 18-49s, 12.2% of 18-39s and 13.8% of HHS/kids.

On Sunday, TV3’s HD premiere of the movie, All About Steve, won its slot with 25-54s (8.6%) but narrowly lost to TV2’s SD re-runs of Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo in the 18-39 and 18-49 demos.

Ironically, Raising Hope prematurely ended its season-one run with some of its highest ratings: 7.3% of HHS/kids, 5.8% of 25-54s, 6% of 18-49s and 6.2% of 18-39s.

However, it and TV One’s re-run of North were dwarfed by TV2’s movie, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, although North held up well with 25-54s: 9.6% versus Meatballs’ 10.8%.

Saturday’s 25-54 ratings for TV One’s Keeping Up With the Joneses (6.5%) and TV3’s Ice Road Truckers (4.4%) were undistinguished but The X Factor USA and The Graham Norton Show helped TV3 to win Friday night.

X Factor also was good news for the network on Thursday, when it largely out-rated TV2’s reality line-up with 8%-12.1% of the key demos.

It will be interesting to see where TV3 schedules the next series of Underbelly, given both the Kiwi spin-off, Land of the Long Green Cloud, and Razor were rating flops.

Despite going out on a high across the Tasman, the latter’s double-episode finale could average only 3.7% of 25-54s opposite TV One’s HD duo of Winners and Losers (8.3%) and Harry Law’s (6.5%).