TV3 Nabs Norton Ahead of the BBC

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 Olympic rowing heroes Gary and Paul O’Donovan.

It’s rare if not unprecedented for a NZ network to screen a British programme ahead of its UK transmission.

Normally, UK programmes contractually can’t air here until after their domestic transmission.

So this is a real coup for TV3, and one that Graham Norton fans deserve given they’ve made it one of the network’s most popular series.

The rest of TV3’s first week of the new year will be dominated by movies, with HD re-runs of A Knight’s Tale (7.00 Saturday), Unbroken (8.30 Sunday), The American (11.00 Sunday), Water For Elephants (8.10 Monday), Legally Blonde (8.05 Wednesday) and The Terminator (8.30 Thursday).

Prime’s new year highlights are limited to HD transmissions of the movies King Kong (8.40 December 31) and I Am Ali (7.30 January 5), the Prime Planet special, Beaver Las Vegas, and the premiere of Trawlermen Tales.

Beaver Las Vegas looks at how the city in the desert is solving its unprecedented drought problems; Trawlermen Tales follows the lives of the trawler fishermen of Newlyn, Cornwall.

In the UK, the latter floundered in the ratings, with the premiere halving ITV’s slot average.

Meanwhile, from Saturday Prime will screen three hours of children’s programmes in HD every day except Sunday.

And over Christmas/New Year, when The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon is off-air in the US, Prime will play repeats.

In the meantime, the year’s last three original broadcasts will feature: Viola Davis, Nick Kroll and chef Daniel Humm (10.40 tonight); Jim Parsons, Kid Toy Experts Evan & Jillian and musical guest DEC 99TH (11.55 tomorrow); and Adam Driver, Rhett & Link and musical guest R. Kelly (10.25 Monday)

Meanwhile, fans of Galavant should note TVNZ 2 will premiere the second season off-peak on December 31, in a 3.15pm slot.

The irreverent medieval comedy tanked on Sunday nights and was axed after only two seasons on ABC (ironically, the season two premiere was entitled, A New Season aka Suck It Cancellation Bear).

And sneaking into TVNZ 2’s late-night schedule next week is the season four premiere of Mistresses (12.15am Thursday).