HDTV Ratings: February 16-19

Viewers no longer appear to be just that into House.

Episode two of what will be the maverick medic’s final season rated much lower than the first on Sunday, which crippled HD lead-out The Big C’s prospects of recovering from its dismal debut.

Nigel Latta

Opposite the second half of TV2’s SD movie, He’s Just Not That Into You, The Big C averaged only 2.7% of 25-54 year-olds and 2.3% of 18-49 year-olds, the viewers TV3 targets.

TV3 also will be anxious about Would I Lie to You’s ratings drop against TV One’s HD newcomer, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Grown-Ups.

Nigel Latta’s latest averaged 10.3% of 25-54s, 9.7% of 18-49s and 12.8% of household shoppers, which means it also comfortably out-rated TV2’s HD re-run of The Big Bang Theory.

HD comedy Mike & Molly and SD stablemate Happily Divorced won the 7.30 hour in the key demographics, although the latter was a couple of points shy of the former in each demo.

On Saturday, HD re-runs of Revenge and Homeland rated solidly for TV2 and TV3 respectively while on Friday TV2’s The Vampire Diaries was down on the previous week, when Mike King’s Commercial Chaos delivered it a bigger lead-in than the two-hour American Idol edition.

On Thursday, Bones bounced back after the previous week’s low-rating premiere, with 7% of 25-54s and 7.6% of 18-49s but was still beaten by TV2’s Once Upon a Time, which scored 9.2% and 8.6% of these demos respectively.

However, the fairy tale drama’s ratings were down sharply on its premiere, when it averaged 11.6% of 18-39s compared to the second episode’s 9.5%; other demos slipped 2-3 points as well.