MediaWorks and Special Group put a bit of effort into promoting the Sunday showing of The Simpsons’ 500th episode. And it worked, with nearly a quarter of a million viewers aged 5+ tuning in to the show, the most viewers since the channel was launched in February last year.
TV3 has matched rival TVNZ’s talent show announcement with an ace card of its own. The much anticipated local version of hit renovation show ‘The Block’ is one step closer, with the ‘fab four’ sponsors announced. Bunnings, Kiwibank, Mazda and Wild Bean Café are the inaugural ‘foundation partners’ of this long awaited local series, and the call has gone out for contestants. Three million Aussies watched the final live show, of the most watched series in Australia, where it consistently out-rates Masterchef.
In defiance of the threat posed by digital to television, MediaWorks is taking a huge risk and premiering one of its top new shows online. As crazy and contradictory as this approach seems, when FOX did the same thing last year, it got some surprising results: despite over two million people watching the show before it was broadcast, it rated through the roof on the night, up 20 percent from its lead-in show Glee, way beyond the network’s wildest dreams.
Local comedy 7 Days, and 3 News’ election coverage highlight a strong month of growth for TV3, which saw significant gains in the key 25-54 demographic, while TV One continued to lose ground.
A trouble-making family from West Auckland with a penchant for dodgy dealings, swearing, booze and shagging is a solid premise for a TV show. And Outrageous Fortune certainly delivered the goods for TV3 during its six year run. A family with supernatural powers who are descended from Norse Gods is a slightly stranger concept. But that’s what TV3’s new local drama The Almighty Johnsons is all about and, while it will undoubtedly be difficult to fill the entertaining boganic void left by the departure of the Wests, ratings for the first episode of the replacement were promising.