Sunday night's Season 5 premiere of "Walking Dead" broke the show's record when 17.3 million viewers tuned in.
The record was previously held by the Season 4 preview.
“Last night’s episode outperformed everything else on television in this key demographic, including Sunday Night Football, by over 2.5 million adults 18-49,”
Super Hero Hype reported. “With time-shifted playback, the season five premiere should exceed 22 million viewers.”
"It’s a Dead man’s party. Who could ask for more?" Charlie Collier, AMC president, told Super Hero Hype. "'The Walking Dead' is one of those increasingly rare shows today that can command a live audience not significantly cannibalized by time-shifted viewing. Who would have thought that cannibalized television could be curtailed by cannibal-ized television?"
Season 4 raked in 21.1 million total viewers when seven days of DVR playback was included in the stats.
TVLine said the "Walking Dead" premiere "garnered a rare 'A' grade from TVLine readers," and attracted 11 million viewers in the 18 to 49 age bracket.
“Amazing ratings for an amazing episode,” a TVLine commenter wrote. “This show just gets better and better.”
The show also dominated social media, pulling in 1.3 million tweets.
"'The Walking Dead' is also one of the only shows in Twitter history to have had all 10 trending topics in the United States pertain to the show simultaneously," Super Hero Hype said. "On Facebook, the day of premiere saw more than 7.7 million users driving more than 32.1 million interactions related to 'The Walking Dead.'"
The
"Walking Dead" Facebook page has 30.7 million followers.
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