Sunday night’s midseason return of the AMC zombie drama delivered 12.3 million viewers and a 6.1 adults 18-49 rating — its biggest yet in both measurements.And that was against The Grammys.
To give you an idea of how stunning this performance is, ABC’s Once Upon a Time sank to a series low 2.2 in the adult demo last night and Fox’s Family Guy went down to a 2.4 — and those are the broadcast shows that performed the best against the music awards show.
Put another way: Last Thursday’s American Idol had 13.3 million viewers and a 4.1 rating and Wednesday’s edition had 14.3 million and a 4.6 rating. So in the all-important adult demo — if not total viewers — The Walking Dead beat last week’s American Idol telecasts. In fact, The Walking Dead‘s average for its current third season in the demo is higher than top broadcast shows like Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory and NCIS. And among cable, there’s no comparison — last night’s episode was the biggest adult demo number ever for a basic cable series.