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.

The prequel to Spartacus: Blood and Sand will start shooting on August 2, with the same crew that worked on season one.
Pre-production of the six episodes will begin early next month and, upon their completion in November, season two is expected to go into production.
However, this will depend on several issues being resolved, not least of which is the health of star Andy Whitfield.

Māori TV’s premiere of Kaitangata Twitch boosted the channel’s 7pm Sunday viewership.
Production Shed.TV’s Margaret Mahy adaptation was watched by 1.4% of 18-49 year-olds (3.4 channel share), 1.5% of 25-54 year-olds (3.3 share), 0.9% of 18-39 year-olds (2.3 share), and 1.9% of household shoppers with kids (3.5 share).
This was up on the previous week’s Anzac Day programming and the last series to screen in the slot, Kai Time on the Road, which largely drew less than 1% of key demographics.

The New Zealand screen industry appears to have lost one of its production mainstays of the past two years, with unconfirmed reports from the US that The Legend of the Seeker has been axed.

TV3 is using the 10th anniversary edition of Survivor to try to take some of the ratings gloss off TV2’s Go Girls. The good keen Kiwi chick hit has boosted its popularity in the two weeks following its premiere, which rated below its first-season average.

TV2 will be looking for episode two of Go Girls’ second season (8.30 tonight) to build on last week’s debut, which drew fewer viewers than the season one premiere.
It was watched by 10.1% of the network’s target demographic, 18-39 year-olds, and earned a 26.9% channel share.
By comparison, last year Go Girls bowed with an 11.9 rating/37.1 share and the season went on to average an 11.1 rating/33 share.

The sci-fi series that imagines what our lives would be like if we all had a simultaneous glimpse into our futures premieres 8.30 tonight – five months after its US launch won flash reviews and ratings. Had TV2 elected to screen it late last year, it would have benefited from hot internet buzz about the show and discouraged its core audience from illegally downloading episodes.

The first official week of TV3’s new season has seen the broadcaster lagging behind TV2 each night in its target demographic of 18-49 year-olds.
The highlight of its Sunday-Wednesday rollout of new shows was the two-hour return of House (10.6 rating/28.4 share), which rendered Déjà Vu (9.4/26.9) an also-ran.

The close-to-home Roman spectacle, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, has been renewed for a second season, but has yet to find favour from a Kiwi channel.
According to one network insider, the Rob Tapert-produced series is viewed as being awash in sex and violence, but without the “quality cachet” that made Rome respectable for primetime, free-to-air viewing.