Prime Scores Huge Shares
August 8, 2023 
10 Comments
Prime’s live coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup match, between Japan and Norway, and delayed coverage of the Netball World Cup, in which the Silver Ferns lost to England in the first semi-final, had the network cock-a-hoop in the ratings on Saturday.
The games’ 25-54 viewership earned Prime a 15.55 peak-hour share of the demographic it most covets, a 13.56 share of 18-49 year-olds and an 11.92 share of viewers 5+.
How significant was this? Prime’s 25-54 share the previous night was 1.96.
The biggest casualty of this was TVNZ 1, which posted an unusually low share of 19.13, while Three could muster only a 9.80 share and TVNZ 2 an 8.21 share.
The next highest free-to air shares were 2.65 for Duke and 2.29 for Rush.
TVNZ 1’s highest rating programmes were 1 News, The Chase and Tipping Point Lucky Stars. Three’s were Newshub Live at 6pm, Beach Cops and Love It or List It Australia.
TVNZ 2’s 7.00 movie Mean Girls led its line-up and was its only programme to crack the top 10; RuPaul’s Drag Race finished in 15th place.
On Friday, TVNZ 2’s season premiere of The Farmer Wants a Wife (2.35 rating/16.31 share) out-rated TVNZ 1’s The Repair Shop (1.72 rating/12/89 share) and Three’s movie Limitless (2.13 rating/11.31 share).
But it still finished third in the peak-demo shares, with 14.90 vs TVNZ 1’s 23.55 and Three’s 17.48.
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August 8, 2023 at 12:13 pm
Prime really need to roll out some better primetime programming to capitalise on this success. Its primetime has been lacklustre lately.
Wow such huge numbers for Prime. They really need to capitalise on this imho. I actually thought the netball coverage was delayed because of the World Cup commitments it had and the game clashing.
Yes, Jamhamnz, it’s all over the place — live sport, premium drama, undistinguished reality … essentially it’s a Sky TV sampler. There’s some good stuff on the channel but most of its lag too far behind their Sky runs to be viable for FTA while the pre-emptions for sport make the schedule haphazard.
Thanks for your vigilance, Leo. That would make more sense re the blockbuster ratings. Clearly you can tell I don’t follow sport — an ignorance not helped by overlooking the programming update. Double-billing the live FIFA game and delayed netball was the perfect combo for Prime and I have amended the post accordingly.
Thanks for clarifying Philip, one would of thought that they would air the crucial Netball World Cup game LIVE and delayed the Football match as it had no NZ team.
It may depend on the contractural obligations, Leo, or it simply may have made more commercial sense to screen the women’s football in peak-hour because of the popularity of the tournament. It also would have been an easier scheduling decision to run the netball later as the football simply pre-empted filler fodder. Otherwise, the football would have been delayed by several hours and lost its appeal.
Yes I know it’s like a Sky sampler but I don’t enjoy the constant American Pickers or Pawn Stars etc. Once or twice a week sure but not (like today) 3 episodes in a row in a lead in to the football. Need a bit more variety!
Prime programmes fodder like this because it can be easily pre-empted to accommodate the vagaries of live sport. Much simpler to pull a half-hour here and there at late notice than set up something more ambitious that’s much harder to dismantle.
Still shows that there is a market for FTA sports in this country.
Fair points Philip, I’m glad the tournament is enjoying continued success and helping to lift Prime’s share. If only our own Football Ferns were mirroring the success of the Aussie Matildas (Prime’s ratings would of grown even more). I agree with you Paul, there is still a market for free to air sports and is probably the only saving grace for the networks outside of news with the continued exodus to streaming.