HDTV Ratings: June 26-28

The HD season premiere of Rescue  1 easily won its slot on Thursday, with 2-3 times the viewership of its chief competition.

It averaged 12.7%-16.6% of the major demographics, and was most popular with household shoppers.

But Rescue 1’s HD lead-out, Once Upon a Time, has slipped dramatically since TV One launched Big Fat Gypsy Weddings.

The latter won the 8.30 hour in every key demo except HHS, where Once Upon a Time had the edge. Even so, Gypsy’s impact has made the contest between the fairy tale drama and HD rival Bones much tighter in the older demos.

Thursday’s episode averaged 7.2% of 18-49 year-olds and 8.1% of 25-54 year-olds compared to Bones’ 6.0% and 6.7% respectively.

However, in the HHS and 18-39 demos, Bones had roughly half as many viewers.

TV One’s erudite new HD comedy Episodes averaged 4.1% of the network’s 25-54 demo — virtually a third of what it’s appalling SD lead-in, Mrs Brown’s Boys, drew.

In the other key demos, Episodes averaged 2.5%-3.3%, which at least was up on the previous week’s debut.

Wednesday’s double-episode season finale of Road Cops averaged 8.5%-11.9% against TV2’s comedy dynamo Two and a Half Men (13.9%-14.9%) and 2 Broke Girls (13.0%-15.5%).

TV2 also dominated the 8.30 hour with The Big Bang Theory (15.0%-17.5%) and Happy Endings (7.8%-11.2%) — although the latter was more vulnerable to TV3’s Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms (7.4%-9.6%).

At 9.30, TV3’s Breakout Kings lost ground against TV One’s Castle, losing in all key demos except HHS, which it only narrowly won.

TV2’s The Mentalist made a modest comeback on Tuesday, averaging only 8.3%-13.3%.

Although it was vastly more popular than HD rivals Intrepid Journeys and NCIS among HHS, in the other demos competition was much fiercer: Mentalist 8.3%-10.1%, Journeys 7.5%-10.8%, NCIS 7.2%-7.9%.

GCB has sharply shed viewers since shifting to 9.30, where it averaged only 4.9%-7.0% but still out-rated Hawaii Five-O (2.5%-4.3%).

The season finale of TV3’s Funny Roots averaged 5.0%-7.2% opposite Highway Cops’ 7.4%-12.6% and Suburgatory’s 10.8-14.4% (whose lead-in, The Middle, drew 14.3%-17.6%).