TV One’s Got a #1 Hit

NZ’s Got Talent shot up the ratings charts, with its Sunday night premiere drawing an awesome 21.4% of TV One’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds.

That’s as jaw-dropping as some of the acts that featured on this crowd-pleasing sensation, which had even veteran reviewer Colin Hogg, of the NZ Herald, dubbing it “more than entertaining enough to knock this doubter out of his cynic’s chair”.

And according to TVNZ, the show had the highest-rating launch for a local entertainment/reality hour since 2004, with more than 1.4 million viewers tuning in — or 22.9% of Kiwis aged five-plus.

It averaged 17.4% – 22.6% of the other major demographics and while denting the appeal of its time-slot competition, drew more viewers than who would typically watch TV at 7.30 on a Sunday.

The timing also couldn’t have been better for TVNZ or NZ On Air, which have been battered of late for everything from dropping a third, weekly hour of Coronation Street to stumping up $1.6 million in public funding for Talent — both parties couldn’t have wished for a more trumphant ratings or PR coup.

Hats off to Imagination TV as well, for producing such an exhilarating hour in flawless HD — hopefully the terrific production values will persuade TVNZ to commmission the next season of Imagination’s MasterChef NZ in HD.

If you were among the few who missed the premiere, don’t bother watching it on-demand (where it’s already averaged nearly 10,000 streams) — wait until its 4.55pm Saturday re-run to enjoy its full, eye-popping — and foot-stomping– splendour.