The Walking Dead season 8 ratings hold strong in live and extended views

The Walking Dead’s ratings for season 8 may be lower but they are still high enough to keep it at the top of the ratings charts.

The Walking Dead continues to lead Sunday nights in live views. And it consistently picks up more than 2 million views in extended viewing. That proves that the lower live ratings aren’t a cause for concern.

The third episode of The Walking Dead season 8 “Monsters” led Sunday night in live views with 8.5 million views. It also had the second highest live ratings for the entire week. It was beaten by Monday Night Football.

In Live+3 views the second episode of season 8, “The Damned”, picked up a 37% gain. The episode picked up a total of 3.3 million views in the first three days after the show aired live.

That’s consistent with the Live+3 increase that The Walking Dead has had throughout season 8 and during season 7 as well. According to studies the number of households that pay for a cable TV subscription dropped more than 2% in 2017 and more people are dropping cable every day.

So while there are many factors that are affecting the drop in The Walking Dead live ratings one of the largest factors is the dramatic increase in the number of people that are no longer paying for cable subscriptions and choose to watch their favorite shows like The Walking Dead on other mediums.

Season 8 The Strongest Yet

There are some fans of The Walking Dead who have mixed feelings about the current season. But for many fans season 8 is the strongest season of the show yet. There have been some missteps certainly, like bringing Morales back from season 1 only to kill him off in the next episode. Lots of fans felt that was gimmicky and something the show didn’t need.

But there’s no doubt that it’s exciting to the survivors in full on battle mode. It’s thrilling to see some of the characters who have been relegated to the background for the last few seasons getting some screen time and getting to really expand their range.

Fans also appreciate the faster pace and higher intensity of this season compared to the relatively slow and sad events of season 7. Fans are getting the emotional payoff they wanted last season in the current season watching the survivors do what they best – fight together for a common goal.

So far The Walking Dead season 8 hasn’t shown too much of Negan or the core Saviors but as Rick’s squad continues their all out assault on Negan’s empire Negan’s response to Rick’s slaughter of his men is sure to be dramatic.

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Extended Midseason Finale

It was recently announced that The Walking Dead midseason finale will have an extended running time of 88 minutes. So it’s likely that the midseason finale will show some kind of big confrontation between Negan and Rick’s group, possibly an assault on Alexandria by Negan and The Saviors. The show’s ratings may improve as All Out War continues but even now the ratings still are high enough for The Walking Dead to remain the top show on cable TV.