Schedule Watch: May 8

TVNZ 2 is revising its Friday night schedule to improve its prospects against Three’s top-rating light-ent line-up.

It’s pre-empting this week’s episode of The Simpsons so Best Foods Comedy Gala can start earlier at 7.30.

This will provide it a stronger lead-in from Shortland Street and give it a head-start on Three’s The Graham Norton Show.

Similarly, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown will move forward from 9.00 to 8.30, so it begins ahead of 7 Days, which trounced it last week in the ratings when the two went head-to-head.

TVNZ 2 also will add Taskmaster to the line-up at 9.30, ahead of a 10.25 broadcast of The Simpsons.

It’s not the same episode that would have aired at 7.30 but a repeat of season 24’s adult-rated Treehouse of Horror Special XXIII. (The Simpsons also will  be pre-empted on May 17, by TVNZ 2 fast-tracking the double-episode series finale of The Big Bang Theory.)

And in another change, TVNZ 2 will replace World’s Fattest Man 3 on May 15, which the network was rolling out to usurp Whiskey Cavalier, with Tantastic: 50 Years of Change, a documentary about Britain’s worst tanning addicts.

TVNZ 1 also is revising its schedule to compete more strongly on Mondays against My Kitchen Rules and Dancing With the Stars.

From May 20 it’s dumping Fair Go stablemate Driving Test for new episodes of a series that previously aired on TVNZ 2, Surveillance Dashcam.