THE SKED’S SUNDAY CABLE RATINGS REPORT – 3/31/13

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Simply a spectacular night for cable television.

AMC:  The season finale for THE WALKING DEAD had an astounding 9.1 rating in 18-49s when its 9PM, 11PM, midnight and 1AM airings are combined, and the 9PM broadcast alone scored a giant 6.4, up a full point from the previous week.  Even the TALKING DEAD post-finale talk show had a 2.6, enough to make it a solid hit on any broadcast network.

HISTORY CHANNEL:  The Easter Sunday finale of THE BIBLE had a 3.0 rating in 18-49s (up 0.3 from the previous week’s installment), rising to 3.5 with a midnight rerun included, but the show skewed far older than Walking Dead–only 34% of Bible viewers were under 50, compared to 70% for Walking Dead.  VIKINGS slipped 0.1 to 1.3 for the week (1.8 with a re-airing), but the big question for the show will be how it fares next week without the big Bible lead-in.

HBO:  The network gave GAME OF THRONES its Season 4 renewal this morning–which among other things means the show won’t have to break off midway through George R.R. Martin’s third novel–after a superb 2.4 rating on Sunday, rising to 3.1 with a later re-airing (keeping in mind that only a fraction of US households actually have HBO).  A remarkable 74% of Game viewers are under 50.

LIFETIME:  Both ARMY WIVES and THE CLIENT LIST slipped 0.1, to a respective 0.8 and 0.7, still very solid numbers but not tremendous hits.  Client continues to get a much younger audience than Wives, with about 60% of its audience under 50 compared to 45% for Wives.  We’ll see next week if they bounce back against less fierce competition.

SHOWTIME:  A steady 0.8 for SHAMELESS (Showtime, of course, is like HBO only in a fraction of American homes). A healthy 2/3 of its viewers are under 50.

A Saturday note:  ORPHAN BLACK, the new offering from BBCAMERICA, had a good start with 1M live + same day total viewers, better than the roughly 600,000 viewers Copper has been getting on more-watched Sunday nights.  (In fairness, Orphan Black had the benefit of a Doctor Who lead-in, with over 2M viewers the 2nd highest rated show ever on the network.)