'Walking Dead' sets
new cable records
AMC zombie series averages 5.4 million 18-49 viewers
By Toni Fitzgerald
Feb 14, 2012
AMC's zombie drama "The Walking Dead" scared up another record performance over the weekend.
The premiere of the second half of the show's second-season on Sunday night at 9 p.m. set a record for the most-watched drama in basic cable history among adults 18-49 and 25-54,
breaking the mark "Dead" set with its debut last fall.
"Dead" averaged 5.4 million 18-49s and 4.4 million 25-54s, according to Nielsen, up 12 percent and 6 percent, respectively, from last October's debut.
The show also averaged 8.1 million total viewers, up from 7.3 million last fall and well ahead of the show's series premiere in 2010, which averaged 5.3 million.
The show's growth is a credit to AMC's marketing campaigns, which have targeted horror and comic book fans at conventions and shops, and the show's huge social media presence, including 6 million Facebook fans, who help generate buzz about the show.
Thanks to its highly engaged audience, "Dead" has become a double threat for AMC. It's not only one of the top shows on cable but it's also proven adept at helping to launch other shows, something that not every cable hit can manage.
Last fall "Hell on Wheels" launched behind "Dead" and
became the network's second-biggest debut ever, behind only "Dead," averaging 4.4 million total viewers.
That's much better than either "Breaking Bad" or "Mad Men," AMC's critically acclaimed dramas that draw more buzz than viewers.
And on Sunday night the
new reality series "Comic Book Men" launched to a respectable 2 million viewers.
Though it lost a huge amount of its lead-in, its demo numbers were still solid: 1.3 million 18-49s and 1.1 million 25-54s, both more than double AMC's January primetime average.
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