HDTV Ratings: Vampire Diaries Hot But No Go Ghouls

Last night’s HD premiere of The Vampires Diaries staked out the slot for TV2 but didn’t have the ratings bite of last week’s Go Girls season finale.

However, it easily won the 8.30pm hour against TV One’s The Forgotten and the first half of TV3’s movie, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.

The pilot was watched by 11.6% of TV2’s target audience, 18-39 years, and by 12% of 18-49-year-olds; the Go Girls finale rated 15.9% and 16.2% respectively (the second season drew 15% more viewers than the first and has just come out on DVD, but not Blu-ray, with cast commentaries on two of the episodes).

The first NZ review of the series, from Jane Bowron in this morning’s Dominion Post, labelled it “True Blood-lite for cliche lovers” and concluded: “Makers of TV insist on telling us that today’s box watchers like, crave even, the churning out of the same old cliched themes over and over again. If they’re right, then viewers will lap up The Vampire Diaries.”

If you did lap it up, and don’t want to wait until after Halloween to see all 22 episodes in HD, the first season will be released on region-free Blu-ray in the US on August 31.