Dying Is Easy, Ratings Are Hard: 'Walking Dead' Slips but Remains a TV Monster
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TV’s top-rated scripted series staggered back onto the tube last Sunday night, and while the ratings marked a five-year low for a season premiere, AMC’s “The Walking Dead” is still putting up numbers that are the envy of the broadcast networks.
According to Nielsen live-plus-same day data, the season eight opener averaged 11.4 million viewers and a 5.0 in the demo, which works out to 6.49 million adults 18 to 49. Time-shifting in the handful of hours after the official 9 p.m. EDT airing (Nielsen’s cutoff for live-same day is 3 a.m.) accounted for nearly half (45 percent) of those demo deliveries, as some 2.89 million adults 18 to 49 caught up on the action via their DVRs.
If the ratings were low by “Walking Dead” standardslast season’s skull-crushing, cliffhanger-resolving opener scared up 17.4 million viewers and a 8.4 in the demo, or 10.7 million adults under 50the show remains a monster hit for AMC. The 67-minute episode eclipsed every other scripted option on the tube Sunday night. For the sake of context, the No. 2 non-NFL show, Fox’s “The Simpsons,” averaged a 1.6 in live-same-day, or less than one-third of the demo that tuned in to the zombie apocalypse serial.
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