The Walking Dead season 9 premiere picks up big gain in extended views

The ratings for AMC’s The Walking Dead have been controversial lately but they’re not nearly as dire as some outlets are claiming.

The Walking Dead’s ratings are lower than they have been in the past, but they’re not nearly as bad as many outlets are claiming. The Walking Dead season 9 premiere debuted to a low 6 million live views when it aired on October 7th. But these days live views are only one part of a larger ratings picture.

The season premiere of The Walking Dead was available early to anyone who subscribes to AMC Premiere, so there’s data on how many people watched the premiere episode early on Saturday night instead of waiting until Sunday night to watch it live.

And these days, as some outlets conveniently don’t mention, extended views are a huge part of the overall success of a show. The Live+7 ratings, which count the live views plus all the DVR viewing for the 7 days after the live airing, are a much better indication of the overall success of the episode because these days many people DVR shows to watch later or to watch when they can skip through the commercials.

Live views are no longer a reliable metric to use to judge the success of a show. And the extended views for The Walking Dead season 9 premiere picked up an increase of 54% in the seven days after the initial airing. The Walking Dead season 9 premiere “A New Beginning” added 3.2 million views in the week after the initial airing. And that doesn’t include the people who watched the premiere early on AMC Premiere. So the total views for the premiere were 9.3 million which is down from previous premiers but still far and away the highest rated scripted show on cable.

The Walking Dead Ratings Compared To AHS

The second most popular scripted cable show is American Horror Story: Apocalypse. Comparing the two gives fans a better sense of how massive The Walking Dead ratings are. The AHS episode that aired during the same time frame as TWD premiere had only 2 million live views. That’s 4 million less than The Walking Dead.

And even though AHS picked up a huge increase in extended views adding another 3 million views for an increase of 150% and a total of 5 million views it still is 4 million views behind The Walking Dead. When the second most popular show is 4 million views behind the most popular show it’s safe to say that the most popular has nothing to worry about when it comes to ratings.

So don’t buy the click bait hype. The Walking Dead’s ratings are still massive. And it’s impressive for any show to have held onto the number one spot for almost a decade. The Walking Dead’s live views are lower than they have been in the past but live views aren’t the whole ratings story. And The Walking Dead still reigns as the top scripted cable drama by a huge 4 million viewer margin.