The Walking Dead had its season 9 premiere on Sunday and it looks like fans either forgot about it or they weren’t too interested in watching because the season premiere took a major hit in the ratings.
The premiere episode was seen by 6.1 million viewers, down 47 percent from last fall’s season 8 opening, which was seen by more than 11 million viewers. Among adults 18-49, the show was down an even heavier 51 percent.
This represents the smallest audience for The Walking Dead since the show’s first six-episode season back in 2010 before the series became a true pop culture phenomenon and a huge hit for AMC. What makes the slide more glaring is that there was a lot of pre-season buzz about the fate of Rick Grimes and Maggie Greene, as stars Andrew Lincoln and Lauren Cohan have confirmed they’re leaving the show this year.
AMC has pointed to competition with sports programming on Sunday for the slide and the premiere was also available as an AMC commercial free option for 24 hours before its live airing. The commercial-free option led to the single highest day of new sign-ups in the history of the service but those views aren’t counted in the linear ratings and AMC has not released the exact numbers.
The Walking Dead hit its ratings peak during the fifth season which saw its premiere watched by more than 17 million viewers. The ratings have ebbed each year since with many fans pointing to the wavering quality of the series but it’s still the top show on cable in the 18-49 demo an is the number 2 entertainment series on all of TV this season behind This Is Us.
