HDTV Ratings: October 10-12

Last night premiere of Harry’s Law blazed its way to the top of the 25-54 ratings for TV One.

It drew an astonishing 10.5% of the audience the network targets, which made it TV One’s most popular show after One News (10.6%).

The Kathy Bates dramedy out-rated its lead-in, the season finale of Nothing Trivial (10.2%), and was twice as popular as TV3’s The Borgias (4.5%).

With 18-49 year-olds, the margin was slightly narrower — 8.5% vs 4.1% — while household shoppers with kids weren’t as impressed with either: 7.8% vs 2.1%.

Writing in this morning’s Dominion Post, TV critic Jane Clifton aptly summed up Harry’s Law as “agreeably mad, eccentric, wisecracky and warm-hearted.

“But the problem is: we’ve seen it all before, time and time again … a cookie-cutter blend of legal potboiler, soap, comedy and weekly liberal lecture.”

Nonetheless, TV One viewers were enthralled, with the 25-54 rating remaining consistent over the hour: it opened with 12.2% and closed with 10.1%.

Elsewhere last night TV One’s SPCA Rescue HD special drew 9.2% of 25-54s, opposite one of TV2’s hottest sitcoms, Hot in Cleveland, while TV3’s Underbelly: Razor continued to struggle against Nothing Trivial, with a 25-54 rating of 5.1%.

On Tuesday, TV2’s Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice ended their seasons strongly, with the former rating 16.1% of household shoppers with kids and the latter, 15%.

They also were popular with 25-54s but TV3’s NCIS combo proved resilient enough to rate 10% and 8.7% of this demographic.

But TV3’s Monday HD movie, a repeat of Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, sunk opposite TV2’s The Mentalist, averaging around half the audience in the key demos.