More numbers have been released for Sunday night’s event cable airings, and it was a big night for everyone. The most voracious bite came from the Season 3 finale of THE WALKING DEAD, setting a new record with 12.4M total viewers for the 9PM initial airing alone. It also had 8.1M 18-49 viewers, making it the highest rated show of the week in broadcast or cable television. In fact, the full season of Walking Dead set a new mark in the history of television by outrating every series everywhere, moving ahead of The Big Bang Theory and more than a point ahead of The Voice. The giant finale also sparked a record for TALKING DEAD, its weekly post-game show, with 5.2M total viewers, 3.3M of them under 50 (around a 2.5 rating).
Meanwhile, the finale of THE BIBLE on History Channel drew 11.7M Easter Sunday viewers. (History claims that in the final hour of the 2-hour telecast, Bible had 12.33M viewers and Walking Dead, contrary to AMC’s tally, had only 12.29M, to which the only reasonable response is–honey, you’re both pretty.) UPDATE: The disparity between the AMC and History Channel numbers is due to the fact that Walking Dead actually ran 65 minutes on Sunday–apparently there was a slight bump in its number in that extra 5 minutes, and if that’s deducted, Bible was slightly ahead for the literal 9-10PM hour. This was not, however, a series record, as the premiere had 13.1M total viewers. Bible skewed much older than Walking Dead, but still managed to pull in 3.9M 18-49s.
Even with that massive competition, fans of GAME OF THRONES turned out like Dothraki warriors for the show’s Season 3 premiere, setting a new series record with 4.4M viewers for the initial 9PM airing (up 200,000 from the show’s previous high) and 6.7M for all the night’s runs. It scored a 2.4 rating in 18-49s at 9PM, with over 3M viewers in that demo. Considering that only 25% of US households subscribe to HBO, that’s proportionately stronger than the zombies and deities, and makes a Season 4 renewal (not that it was ever in doubt) a foregone conclusion.
This sign of the times is worth noting. During the 9PM hour last night, approximately 29 million people were watching just 3 cable networks: AMC, History Channel and HBO. In that same hour, the 4 broadcast networks were watched by a total of 22.55 million viewers. It becomes even more lopsided when the comparison is limited to viewers under 50: a total of 15 million viewers for the 3 cable networks against just 8 million or so for the 4 broadcasters. This is obviously not apples to apples, since the cable networks hosted tremendous events while it was a slow night for broadcast, with reruns on FOX and NBC in that hour. But still–it’s a result that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
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The Sked: SUNDAY Ratings
Sunday preliminary broadcast ratings: 60 Minutes and the CBS 7:00-7:30 half hour specifically inflated by 10 minutes of the end of Masters coverage from 7:00-7:10 pm (mostly the monumentally awkward and amazingly tense ceremony in “Butler Cabin,” where the Green Jacket is awarded).
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THE SKED Sunday Cable Ratings Scorecard
HBO: 18-49 numbers for Sunday’s debuts were in line with the preliminary ratings yesterday, as TRUE DETECTIVE launched with 1.0, and the two episodes of GIRLS were at 0.6/0.5. SHOWTIME: The Season 3 premiere of SHAMELESS was at 0.9, down from 1.1 for last year’s debut. HOUSE OF LIES…
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The Sked: SUNDAY Ratings Chart
Sunday ratings chart last night, last year and last week. Ratings for NBC 7:30-11:00 and CBS 7-8 pm are adjusted from the fast nationals to estimate the adjustment in the official nationals for these live feed programs.
