ScreenScribe

TVNZ 2’s movies dominated on Saturday night but the network’s free-to-air premiere of American Sniper on Sunday was slaughtered by the competition. It averaged 2.5% of 25-54 year-olds, compared to 5.8% for Broadchurch and 3.9% for Transformers: Age of Extinction. Broadchurch won the 8.30 hour in this demo and Transformers was tops from 9.30-11.30, winning in the […]

TV3 is firing The New Celebrity Apprentice. After abysmal ratings for last night’s episode, it is replacing tonight’s broadcast with a re-run of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which also will pre-empt The Graham Norton Show. The rest of Apprentice will play out 3.55pm Saturdays while replacing it on Friday nights will be more Indiana Jones movies. Taking over Apprentice’s Thursday slot will be […]

New Zealand’s definitive guide to what’s airing nightly free-to-air in 1080i Saturday  Africa (TV3, 4.55) Movie: Adventures in Zambesia (TV2, 5.20, R) Newshub Live at 6pm (TV3, 6.00)  University Challenge (Prime, 6.00) The Wonderful World of Gordon Watson (Prime, 6.30, R) Hyundai Country Calendar – 50 Golden Years (TV1, 7.00, R) Movie: The Spy Next Door (TV2, 7.00, R) Movie: A Knight’s […]

TV3’s Christmas Week line-up may have been uninspired but it will end the year in style by screening the New Year’s Eve edition of The Graham Norton Show on December 31 — 13 hours ahead of the BBC. It will feature the stars of Assassin’s Creed, Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, X-Men’s James McAvoy, comedian Frank Skinner, and Irish […]

Whodunit doco for Serial buffs … Oscar-winning Amy rocks … Prime will premiere one of the best fly-on-the-beat documentaries in years, The Murder Detectives (8.35 Fridays from December 9). The Guardian likened the observational Channel 4 series to the Serial podcast and hailed it “as gripping and moving as any drama … [it] had no sexy pathologists or […]

Nearly live from the BBC … New Humans due? … TV3 lifts lid on Boxtrolls … TV3 will screen The Graham Norton Show within a week of the BBC when the chat show host returns for his 20th series on October 7. It will open with guests Daniel Radcliffe, Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick and Robbie Williams. A year […]

KA-POW! The latest superhero series to go belly-up on TV2 is Arrow. Supergirl and The Flash were consigned to Saturday afternoons last month, Gotham (which has just been renewed for a third season) resurfaces next week in SD on Duke, don’t expect to see Agents of SHIELD in primetime again, and as of March 31, Arrow will screen […]

TV3’s new-season roll-out continues its glacial pace in mid-February, with the only new HD additions being the return of its high-rating Friday night light-net stable. Back from February 12 will be Jono and Ben, 7 Days and Fail Army while The Graham Norton Show at last resumes its 18th season. Guests on Norton’s first new episode in two months will include Ralph […]

“Best Time Ever is a show in the truest sense — a spectacle of mastery broadcast live and presided over by Neil Patrick Harris, who can seemingly do anything and is fearless no matter what he does. It draws on a tradition of madcap variety-stunt-sketch-musical-whatever programs, notably Britain’s Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway (the official basis for […]

The season finale of The X Factor NZ proved to be a top-rating swansong, helping TV3 to win Monday night in all the commercial demographics. It averaged 8.2% – 10.8% of the key demos but was neck-and-neck with TV2’s My Kitchen Rules (6.9% – 8.7%) in the 25-54 stakes. The show’s popularity helped a repeat […]