KEY POINTS:
Whether its rucking rugby players, dancing stars or Antarctic adventurers, New Zealanders like to see themselves on the box.
The Rugby World Cup drew the biggest audiences of 2007, followed by Dancing With the Stars, the Fair Go Ad Awards and Marcus Lush's five-part documentary Ice.
All of the top 10 rating programmes this year were locally produced.
Clemenger BBDO managing director Lesley Brown said the increasing popularity of local productions reflected a change in attitude.
"I think New Zealand is growing up and appreciating that there truly is a creative force in New Zealand. I think people are proud to support local productions and the quality has improved exponentially."
The Rugby World Cup was always set to be a ratings winner but failed to achieve its potential due to the All Blacks early exit, Ms Brown said.
Dancing With the Stars was the most popular prime time series, while reality television proved the most popular prime time genre with Piha Rescue, Border Security and Coastwatch all featuring in the top 10.
Ms Brown said the industry was constantly surprised by the performance of reality television, given the quality of some productions.
"[It] was ... exciting five years ago and we thought it would have its day. I thought people would have been saturated with reality by now."
Comedy appears to have lost its pulling power with Kiwi audiences, since the end of top-rating series such as Friends and Sex in the City.
The highest rating comedy series of 2007 was Two and a Half Men, which only placed at number 85 on the list of most watched programmes, national viewers aged five-plus.
"There's no real cult comedy show at the moment," said Ms Brown. "I think [the figures] show the lack of comedy choice and quality out there at the moment."
While TV One continued to dominate the ratings this year, other channels are chewing into the ratings pie.
TV3 programmer Kelly Martin said New Zealand viewers were being offered more choice than ever before.
"The fascinating thing for us has been we've grown a bit and TVNZ have continued to lose audience. Prime and Sky are starting to pick up audience, a little bit more every year. That's the main [market change]."
Ms Brown and Ms Martin named local drama Outrageous Fortune as one of the major ratings successes of the year.
Ms Martin said: "For the first time in a long time, there's been 22 weeks worth of a local drama and it's rated well every week."
BEST IN CLASS
The top rating series of each genre
* Current Affairs: Fair Go (TV One)
* Sport: Rugby World Cup (TV3)
* Drama: Desperate Housewives (TV2)
* Comedy: Two and a Half Men (TV2)
* Crime: Cold Case (TV One)
* Entertainment: Dancing With the Stars (TV One)
* Reality: Piha Rescue (TV One)
* Lifestyle: Mucking In (TV One)
* Soap Opera: Coronation Street (TV One)
