TV One Gives Up The Chase

TV One is radically overhauling its mid-week line-up after making some baffling programming moves.

Gone from primetime Tuesdays and Wednesdays are game show The Chase Australia and the Hollywood re-make of Aussie drama Secrets & Lies.

Next week the former will wind up and be replaced by Outback Truckers (7.30 Tuesdays) while the latter will shift to 11pm Wednesdays, to make way for British reality series, Britcam: Emergency on Our Streets (9.30 Wednesdays).

Both will be in HD.

TV One tested The Chase over summer but why it thought the show would fly opposite The Bachelor NZ and My Kitchen Rules is as incomprehensible as programming in primetime a US remake of a series that didn’t rate that well when it aired only 18 months ago on the network.

Outback Truckers, the first season of which won with TV One’s key demos on Saturday nights, is a better bet while Britcam is a 10-part series that aired on Sky in the UK.

It’s billed as using “cutting edge point of view body cameras to give viewers a unique and immersive look into the working lives of those serving in the front line emergency services”.

TVNZ reports Tuesday’s MKR, in its second week opposite The Chase Australia, gained a 31% increase in the 18-49 audience compared to last week and its share was three points higher.

Quantico also was up sharply, with a 7.3 rating and 24% share on the back of MKR, while TV One’s Coast NZ out-rated TV3’s NCIS: it averaged 7.6% of 25-54 year-olds, which was 7% higher than last week, and scored a 20% share.