Prime TV Ratings

Outpost Gallifrey has obtained the ratings information for Prime TV New Zealand's recent broadcast of the first series of Doctor Who. The series screened on Prime Television 7.30 Thursdays from July 7th to September 29th (mid-winter); this is the same timeslot as Coronation Street (on TVOne), consistently the highest rating programme on NZ television. The ratings are as follows:

Note: the figures are an aggregate across 4 quarters. 'Viewers' are in 1000s; 'share' is the percentage of viewing audience. The total potential audience noted in New Zealand is currently 3,779,000.

The dip for episode 11 was caused by the fact that there was a General Election in New Zealand on September 17th, and that night the other networks carried political debates. While the numbers may look very small, Doctor Who has been a huge success for Prime TV, its second most watched programme; more importantly, its share in the 25-54 demographic equalled and surpassed that of TV3, which was forced to make several programming changes in response. Prime management apparently stated a target of 7%+, and Doctor Who has well surpassed this figure. Also, during this period, no other free-to-air networks screened sci-fi shows in prime time (TV3 played Firefly in a graveyard slot, and a pay TV network has Enterprise on Fridays).