ScreenScribe

➢➢ Prime will strip the outstanding miniseries Chernobyl from 8.30 Sunday-Thursday from December 8. The nuclear reactor meltdown dramatisation originally screened here on SoHo and is widely regarded as the best TV drama of the year. The consecutive-nights strategy lends itself well to Chernobyl’s compelling, blood-curdling momentum and follows its stellar Blu-ray release … ➢➢ […]

TV’s top-rating drama series are Three’s Westside and TVNZ 2’s Wentworth. The Outrageous Fortune spin-off won its 8.30 slot in all the core commercial demographics on Monday, as did the Australian prison drama on Wednesday. Westside averaged 5.3% of 25-54 year-olds and 4.2% of 18-49s; Wentworth averaged 5.5% and 4.5% respectively. Westside had the advantage of […]

After weeks of low ratings, Magnum P.I. bounced back on Wednesday to average 3.4% of Three’s 25-54 demographic. It still lost to TVNZ 2’s Wentworth (5.6%) but was ahead of TVNZ 1’s Manhunt (2.7%) and helped the return of Hawaii Five-O to win the 9.30 hour with 2.4% of 25-54s. The pattern was the same […]

How much lower will Magnum P.I.’s ratings have to sink before they trigger its demise? Tonight’s teaming with The Block NZ: Firehouse, ahead of the return of Hawaii Five-O, may be the reboot’s last chance to earn its primetime stripes. Last week’s episode averaged an abysmal 1.3% of Three’s core commercial demographic, 25-54 year-olds, 0.9% […]

  ➢➢ Three will use The Block NZ: Firehouse to launch the latest season of Westside, the return of Hawaii Five-O (from episode 21 of season seven) and the premiere of The Titan Games. Season five of the Outrageous Fortune spin-off (8.30 Mondays from June 17) is set on the eve of the 1987 America’s […]

There’s more bad news for Hawaii Five-O fans: not only has tomorrow night’s belated resumption of season seven been pre-empted but so has next week’s episode. In fact, it looks like new episodes have been delayed indefinitely because of the varying durations of newcomer Lego Masters Australia. It will screen 7.30 Wednesdays from tomorrow, and […]

Three’s building-block launch of Magnum P.I. has been sabotaged by another Wednesday night premiere. The season premiere of Lego Masters Australia has come in longer than the network expected, and now will air from 7.30-9.25. Rather than push back the 8.30 debut of Magnum PI to next week, Three will screen it an hour later […]

➢➢ It’s a vexing indictment of TVNZ’s schedules when its best prospects are online. TVNZ OnDemand has invested in a 100-hour slate of 12 British shows — some new, some ancient — that will stream from December 3. The undoubted highlights are the Sean Bean drama, Broken, about a Catholic priest in northern England, and […]

Three’s new watching-the-viewers series, Gogglebox, proved to be anything but gangbusting on Wednesday. The 8.30 premiere averaged 3.5% of the network’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, to finish well behind TVNZ 1’s MasterChef Australia (5.1%) and TVNZ 2’s re-run of The Hangover (4.6%). Moreover, this rating was inflated by the bumper lead-in from The Block NZ. […]

➢ TVNZ 2 will launch a Grey’s Anatomy spin-off the same week it resumes Young Sheldon, The Middle, Travel Guides, Booze Patrol and Sensing Murder. Station 19 is a firefighting drama that will screen 9.30 Mondays from July 16. Variety thought the pilot “really good — a refreshingly gimmick-free character drama about the heightened atmosphere […]