Last night’s highly trumpeted return of Outrageous Fortune for its final season earned the award-winner its biggest audience since going to air five years ago. The premiere drew a whopping 24.8 percent of 25-54 year-olds (45.5 share), 24.5% of 18-39 (48.2), 27.8% of household shoppers with kids (51.9), and 23.7 percent (45.9) of TV3’s target audience, 18-49.

Put it down to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

The longest-running NZ drama series in history starts its final season tonight (TV3, 8.30) because there’s not enough money to fund a seventh.

This is in spite of the Westie comedy/drama still ranking among the most popular shows on TV3, being promoted to an ultra-competitive slot, and screening for the first time in high definition.

Kiwi comedies The Jono Project and Bogan Family Films are among the most popular new shows on C4.
At 8.30pm Monday, The Jono Project has been rating much better with the channel’s target audience, 15-39 year-olds, than its time slot predecessor, Heroes.
Whereas the latter rated 1.6% for its season finale, the June 1 premiere of Jono’s New Show drew nearly twice as many viewers. Last night’s broadcast rated 4.9%; the ratings peak of the series so far was 5.3% on June 7.

TV One’s 50 Years of Television News drew three times the viewership of Prime’s 50 Years of NZ Television.
Both channels target 25-54 year-olds. TV One’s news special was watch by 10.8% of this demo and episode two of Prime’s 50 Years by 3.6% – compared with the 4.8% who tuned into the previous week’s premiere (which drew 2.3% when it was repeated on Saturday).
Prime had to hastily reschedule 50 Years’ episode order because originally it planned to screen the news and current affairs instalment, Telling Stories, second.

RadiRadiRah’s prospects for renewal look promising after consolidating its Friday night viewership between Glee and 7 Days.
“Given how the rest of our schedule is doing – we have some very soft performers at the moment – I think it’s holding its own,” MediaWorks TV programming chief Kelly Martin says.
“We have had conversations about another series, but so far that’s as far as it’s gone. Personally, I like the idea of developing and building series rather than just canning them after one season.

The sixth and final series of Outrageous Fortune will notch up two firsts: it will screen in HD and at the earlier hour of 8.30pm.
The surprising programming move is part of TV3’s strategy to shore up its schedule, which has been pounded on Tuesday nights by TV2’s medico-combo, Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice.

US media are divided over whether the Wests have an American future.
Depending on which trade paper you believe, ABC’s remake of Outrageous Fortune, Scoundrels, either made “a pretty modest start” (The Hollywood Reporter) or a “disappointing launch” (Variety) when it went to air on Sunday night in the US while a consumer publication claimed it gave the network “some bragging points” (Entertainment Weekly).

Prime is rewarding 50 Years of NZ Television’s strong ratings by repeating the seven-part series on Saturday nights.
Initially, it was only going to re-run the 90-minute premiere, which can be seen again this Saturday [26 June] at 7.30pm, and repeat the rest of the series later in the year.
But word of mouth and last night’s ratings persuaded the network to re-run all of 50 Years immediately.

Sky TV is understood to have bought the Rob Tapert-produced Spartacus: Blood and Sand.
The US cable-TV sensation about a Roman slave who’s forced to become a gladiator stars Lucy Lawless, Manu Bennett, John Hannah, and, in the title role, Andy Whitfield.
The first season was shot in Auckland and the second was in pre-production when Whitfield was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Cheers to Prime’s 50 Years of NZ Television – on Monday the channel was toasting the success of the 90-minute special that opened the seven-part series.
It was Prime’s highest-rating programme of the year among household shoppers aged 25-54 and the second highest with all 25-54 year-olds (beaten only by the All Blacks vs Ireland match the previous night).

After a premiere that could only be described as RadiRadi-Wow!, TV3’s new sketch comedy, RadiRadiRah, halved its viewership when its second episode screened on Friday (28 May).
It drew 5% of TV3’s target audience, 18-49 year-olds, compared to 10.9% the previous week.
However, TV3 programming chief Kelly Martin isn’t panicking yet.

Don’t tune into TVNZ Heartland from 6pm this Tuesday (1 June) on Sky Digital (Channel 17) expecting to catch Gloss, Pukemanu or The Governor.
Those iconic series, and most of the rest made before NZ TV’s deregulation in 1989, are lost in a rights limbo that’s unlikely to be sorted until the TVNZ Amendment Bill is passed.

Despite being a TiVo partner and a Freeview stakeholder, TVNZ says it wouldn’t be able to launch its new 100% pure NZ channel if not for pay-TV foe Sky.
TVNZ Heartland, which showcases 24 hours of Kiwi content seven days a week, launches Tuesday (June 1) and will be on Channel 17, relatively high up on the satcaster’s viewing options.
It coincides with TVNZ celebrating 50 years of NZ TV, but making the channel exclusive to Sky has baffled many in broadcasting and Beehive circles.

TV2’s three-hour finale of American Idol crushed the competition on Thursday night but the previous week it was a Kiwi newcomer that stalled Idol’s ratings.
RadiRadiRah made its Friday night premiere with an extraordinary 10.9% of TV3’s target audience, 18-49 year-olds, to earn a 30.2% channel share and relegate the second hour of Idol to second place.
The first hour of Idol posted a 12.7 rating/32.5 share and the second hour, a 9.7 rating/27.5 share.

Kiwi broadcasters are among the 1250 buyers in Los Angeles this week for a sneak peek of what they hope will be their next primetime titans.

The Screen Directors Guild fears Eyeworks TV’s new policy of contracting editors on a per-episode basis could spread to other production houses if they come under more pressure to slash budgets.
Eyeworks’ TV head Greg Heathcote defends the practice as rewarding the quick and the good but SDG editors’ representative Peter Roberts describes it as unfair.