Winter Olympics Can't Stop "The Walking Dead's" Ratings Domination

CBR

By Stephen Gerding

Published Feb 10, 2014

AMC's hit nearly matched its previous ratings record, outperforming the Olympics by a large margin in the adults 18-49 demographic.

Though the Olympics performed as strong as expected for NBC, the 2014 installment of the international games was unable to slow the shambling crawl of AMC's zombie apocalypse juggernaut.

"The Walking Dead" debuted its Season 4 mid-season opener to a strong 15.8 million viewers, THR reports, off a mere 300K viewers from the show's record-setting Season 4 debut last October. And while the Olympics won the night with 25.4 million viewers, "Walking Dead" outperformed the games in the coveted adults 18-49 demographic, matching its series high of 10.4 million for a 8.3 rating to the Games' 6.9.

The series' mid-season finale, which saw the wholesale slaughter of a number of the show's main characters, aired to 12.1 million viewers, a dip which has been attributed to holiday travel as it aired over Thanksgiving weekend.