Underbelly axed in NZ?
- Published by David Knox
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UPDATED: Underbelly has been axed in New Zealand after poor ratings, only to be reinstated following a viewer outcry.
The Dominion Post newspaper reported the series, portraying Melbourne’s grisly underworld murders, had been taken off air from the TV3 station after screening only three episodes.
“I can’t confirm at this stage when the show will return, only that it will be slightly later in the year in a different slot,” TV3 spokeswoman Jacqui Loates said.
But by later today the NZ Herald added, “TV3 has backtracked on its decision to pull Aussie crime drama Underbelly after a raft of complaints from viewers.”
When the show first screened at 9.30pm on March 30, almost 225,000 watched the show according to AGB Nielsen Media Research, but by last week 188,600 tuned in.
A TV3spokeswoman said the network will monitor audience numbers for the next couple of weeks but would not rule out scrapping the show again if viewership did not pick up.
Source: AAP / Yahoo, NZ Herald
4 Responses
Well, welcome back NZ.
They didn’t muck around taking any evidence of the program off the TV3 website, it was all gone this morning. Guess it’ll all be back tomorrow!
Underbellys competition from the 2 big rivals was Men In Trees & The Sunday Theatre (A Movie one of which was brokeback mountain. However in New Zealand there is no regular public source of weekly ratings only the occasional audience share is given which is useless and gives little idea to what numbers are ‘good’. In comparison to Underbellys 188,000 I once read Home and Away which is on 5.30pm weekdays before the news average audience is 230,000-250,000
What numbers would be considered high in NZ?
Any ideas on what it was up against?
I wonder what numbers are considered ‘good’ in NZ.
188’000 out of 4 Million…I guess thats fairly low, similar to a 900’000 in Oz?