The Walking Dead isn’t having a ratings crisis despite what critics say

The Walking Dead season 8 finale had low ratings but that isn’t the crisis that people think it is.

The Walking Dead season 8 finale ratings were low. Very low. The lowest since season 1, as every clickbait happy media outlet online has declared in headline after headline. But the numbers alone don’t tell the entire story. It’s not fake news, but it’s very clearly disguised news designed to make the show look like it’s in a worse position than it actually is.

As I’ve written many, many, many times live views are not enough to give a complete picture of a show’s popularity anymore. The live+3 views and live+7 views need to be added to the live views in order to get a complete picture of how many times an episode was viewed. These days people DVR shows, stream them online, or even watch on their phones. Almost every TV show across the board has seen a drop in live views over the last year because people are changing the way that they watch TV.

The Walking Dead season 8 finale live views were 7.9 million. While that is low for The Walking Dead it’s important to remember that The Walking Dead consistently has more than 4x the live views of other popular cable shows. And once extended views are added to the show consistently picks up another 4-5 million views. It’s still a ratings phenomenon and has been consistent since season 1.

The live views Sunday night still beat the second most popular cable show that night by more than 3 million views. The Walking Dead was far and away the most popular show on cable, again, and that doesn’t even take into account the number of people who attended Survival Sunday.

Survival Sunday

For the first time ever The Walking Dead finale was shown in movie theaters live around the country along with the Fear The Walking Dead season 4 premiere. There are no numbers available for how many people attended Survival Sunday events but the finale screened in 750 theaters across the country. Each theater has an average of 200-300 seats. So assuming an audience of 250 per screening that’s another 187,000 who watched the finale live but whose views were not counted in the live ratings.

Live +3 Views

You can expect to see an enormous jump in The Walking Dead season 8 finale ratings once the extended views start to come in. That’s been consistent with every episode for the last two seasons, not just the big episodes like premieres and finales.

Next: The good, bad, and interesting from TWD 816

So What Do All These Numbers Mean?

Essentially what all these numbers mean is that the show’s ratings are still pretty amazing for a basic cable show. Don’t fall for the clickbait TWDFamily. The Walking Dead has been the number one show on cable for the past 8 years and that’s not going to change anytime soon so matter what critics say. The numbers show that fans are not abandoning the show and are eager to see what The Walking Dead will bring in season 9.