Originally posted Tuesday, October 9, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
AMC’s “The Walking Dead” lost nearly half its overnight audience year over year, a monstrous fall that is surely setting off alarms among AMC top brass.
Its ninth season debut Sunday night drew a mere 6.1 million viewers vs. 11 million for the season eight debut.
And that is down from the 17 million who watched Glenn die during the gruesome season 7 “Walking Dead” debut.
It’s also 23 percent fewer overnight viewers than the season 8 finale this past spring.
You expect shows in their ninth season to lose audience and TV viewing across the board is dropping, but this is alarmingly bad.
It's clear the Rick/Negan war story line only hastened the departure of a once dedicated fan base. And with Andrew Lincoln leaving midseason, the future of the show itself may hang in the balance if ratings continue to tank.
And this is all happening despite the fact critics and fans who did catch the season 9 debut generally liked it.
DVR and multi-platform viewing will lift the final numbers probably closer to 10 million viewers but that’s still far off from the show’s peak seasons five and six, when it would regularly hit 20 million.
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