Schedule Alert: Extra Helpings of MKR

TVNZ 2 is terminating One Born Every Minute Australia after only one episode so it can run double-episodes of My Kitchen Rules: The Rivals for the next two weeks. The move appears to be a bid to burn off MKR as quickly as possible, which is no longer red-hot in the ratings (Monday’s and Tuesday’s broadcasts finished third in the 18-49 and 25-54 demographics).

Hence, TVNZ 2 also adding extra weeknight MKR broadcasts: 7.30 Wednesdays from June 17 (pre-empting 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown); 7.30 June 25 (Police Ten 7 will move to 7.00 and the movie Premium Rush to 8.40); and 7.00 June 26 (Motorway Patrol will be dropped and Fear Factor will shift to 8.10 and 8 Out of 10 Cats to 9.00).

The MKR stripping also will postpone the network’s June 24 premiere of Would I Lie to You?. Instead, the season final of How to Look Good Naked will air earlier at 8.40, Renters will be dropped and Selling Houses will screen at 9.35.

These changes will allow TVNZ 2 to re-set its schedule in time for the return of Shortland Street to five nights a week from June 29.

In other scheduling news:

➢ Duke will screen Australian Spartan 10.25 Fridays from June 26, as the replacement for Live PD, which has been taken off-air (and axed in the US) because of the Black Lives Matter hysteria.

➢ On this weekend’s Sunday (TVNZ, 7.30): 27-year old Nick Chisholm, who has a rare and severe case of locked-in syndrome, has had his brother Matt by his side – and this time a special gift that no one ever saw coming.

➢ Tuesday’s 20/20 (TVNZ 1, 9.30) interviews the victims of Jeffrey Epstein about the abuse they endured.