HDTV Ratings: October 27-31

A winning Rove with last week's guest Justin Timberlake

Quick long-weekend catch-up:

• What a difference a time slot can make: Rove LA doubled its 25-54 viewership on Thursday when it aired at 9pm instead of 9.30pm. It averaged 7.8%, the same as lead-in The X Factor USA, an improvement that was mirrored in the other key demographics — although, worryingly for TV3, the 25-54 viewership collapsed over the hour, from 9.3% to 5.9%.
• Friday’s X Factor continues to rate much better than Thursday’s, with 11.1% of 25-54s and 9.7% of 18-49s – but lead-out The Graham Norton Show, even in re-runs, is still more popular, helping TV3 to win one of its rare nights.
• TV3’s Friday win was helped by TV2’s two-hour HD debut of The Bachelor going belly-up, attracting only 4.3% of 18-39 and 25-54 year-olds, 4.4% of 18-49s, and 7.6% of household shoppers with kids.
• TV3’s Sunday HD premiere, The Invention of Lying, was competitive with TV2’s SD movie, The Game Plan, but still finished second in the 25-54 and 18-49 demos.
• TV3 has confirmed it isn’t abandoning Sunday HD comedy Raising Hope to sister SD channel Four (where former TV3 properties The Simpsons, The Event and Survivor now air) – despite ratings as dire as last weekend’s, when it hovered around 2.5% in the key demos, compared to TV2’s HD double-bill of Mike & Molly and The Middle pulling three-to-four times as many viewers.
• Continuing to rate almost as abysmally in its new 7.30pm Saturday slot is Hamish  & Andy’s Gap Year while TV2’s HD Halloween specials, Scared Shrekless and Monsters vs Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space, respectively averaged 5.3% and 6% of the network’s target audience, 18-39 year-olds, and 4.6% and 7.1% of HHS/kids.
• TV2’s HD sleuth The Mentalist easily out-rated the competition on Monday, with ratings of 10.6% (25-54), 11% (18-49), 12.2% (18-39) and 14.1% (HHS/kids).