HDTV Ratings: Middle’s Family Massacres Modern Family

Despite TV3’s Modern Family being one of the week’s funniest, smartest and sharpest shows in HD, it was clobbered in the ratings on Sunday by the debut of TV2’s inferior SD sitcom, The Middle.

The new Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond) comedy drew more than double the 18-49 year-old viewership of TV3’s, with a 15.6 rating/34.7 share compared to the latter’s 6.6 rating/14.7 share (the previous week Modern Family scored an 8.5 rating/19.1 share).

Modern Family’s vulnerability was underscored by The Middle out-rating even its powerhouse lead-in, new episodes of Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory.

Against these shows, TV3’s HD hour of The Simpsons held up relatively well, with the 7pm re-run drawing a bigger 18-49 crowd opposite Two and a Half Men – 8.9 rating/20.2 share – than it did the previous week against NZ’s own two half-witted men, Matthew & Marc’s Rocky Road to Bollywood. However, the first-run 7.30pm edition lost viewers to The Big Bang Theory.

Meanwhile, a Facebook campaign is under way in the US to “let Cam and Mitchell kiss” because Modern Family has only paid their gay relationship lip service.