HDTV Ratings: X-Men vs Criminal Minds

Left to right: Paget Brewster, Joe Mantegna, Manny Perez and Rachel Nichols in the upcoming Criminal Minds episode, Corazon.

TV One’s Criminal Minds is going great guns in its new 8.30pm Monday slot, with last night’s HD episode beating TV3’s HD X-Men movie, The Last Stand, in key demographics.

It drew 12.1% of TV One’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, compared with Last Stand’s 9.7%, 10% of 18-49 year-olds vs 8.9%, and 14.6% of household shoppers with kids vs 8.4%.

However, TV2’s movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, out-rated it in every major demo except 25-54.

Nonetheless, such a strong start bodes well for the Criminal Minds spin-off, Suspect Behaviour, which no doubt TV One will premiere once the parent show’s sixth season ends.

The latest season made headlines for its controversial cast changes, which CBS executives attributed to “the evolution of the franchise”.

Meanwhile, if you missed TV One’s Sunday HD broadcast of Nights in the Garden of Spain, it will be released on DVD on February 2, along with another TV One HD commission, NZ Detectives, on February 23.