TVNZ 2 Loses Patience With Young Sheldon

Young Sheldon is being shunted towards late-night following TVNZ 2’s inability to get a big ratings bang out of the sitcom.

The network had hoped pairing The Big Bang Theory prequel with Sione’s Wedding prequel DuckRockers would turn it into a belated hit.

But DuckRockers has proved to be a lame duck, too, and today, after months of persistently low ratings in plum primetime slots, TVNZ 2 announced Young Sheldon would shift from 8.00 Wednesdays to 10.00.

Taskmaster will move forward half-an-hour, to 8.00, and Live at the Apollo to 9.00 for the next two weeks.

Young Sheldon will then follow holiday movies.

Despite Big Bang being in a perpetual re-run loop on TVNZ 2 and Duke, neither Young Sheldon nor Call Me Kat, which stars Big Bang’s Mayim Bialik, have been able to capitalise on the original’s appeal.

Kat quickly became Sunday afternoon fodder and chances are subsequent seasons of Young Sheldon will wind up in a similar slot.