HDTV Ratings: February 14

Top local shows in HD triumphed and tanked last night as the new season ratings contest between TV2 and TV3 intensified.

Go Girls made a smashing season-four debut, averaging 16.2% of TV2’s target audience, 18-39 year-olds (of which it had a 44.8% share, second only to Shortland Street’s 45.1% share for the night — although the latter’s average rating was lower: 14.7%).

Go Girl Anna Hutchinson

It was also popular with 18-49s (13 rating/35.4 share), 25-54s (12.3 rating/31.1 share) and household shoppers (14.6 rating/36.4 share).

While this wasn’t good news for TV3’s HD crime drama, NCIS, it averaged more 25-54 viewers than last week (against TV2’s Two and a Half Men special): 6.6 rating/16.7 share.

Sister show NCIS: Los Angeles out-rated TV2’s Rookie Blue in this demo, with a 5.8 rating/17.4 share, but not TV One’s I Shouldn’t Be Alive.

But more 18-39s tuned in to Rookie Blue: 7% versus NCIS: LA’s 4.5%.

The night’s biggest loser was one of the finest local HD shows on air, TV3’s The Secret Lives of Dancers.

At 7.30, opposite TV2’s HD return of The Middle, it averaged only 4.3% of 25-54s (vs Middle’s 10.3%), 3.5% of 18-49s (vs 10.3%), 2.9% of 18-39s (vs 11.9%) and 3.5% of HHS (vs 12.1%).

The Middle’s new HD stablemate, Suburgatory, was even more popular than its lead-in among 18-39s (12.1%) and HHS (12.8%) —  although The Middle still had the edge in the older demos.

However, once again another solid local show was the casualty: TV3’s Missing Pieces averaged only 6.1% of 25-54s, 4.7% of 18-49s, 3.6% of 18-39s and 6.3% of HHS.