Hello. Are you a human? Do you own a television? Can you find AMC on your cable package? Because if you are/do/can, you almost definitely watched the Season 4 premiere of The Walking Dead last night. I know this because 16.1 million people tuned in last night, and that is so many people. How many people, exactly? Well, four million more people than the Season 3 finale pulled in, six million more people than the Breaking Bad finale scored, and enough people that if everyone who watched it decided to up and move to Minnesota, Minnesota would instantly become the country’s third most populous state. That many people.
Sayeth Alan Sepinwall at HitFix:
“The Walking Dead” was already the highest-rated show in basic cable history, and last season was the top-rated entertainment show in the 18-49 demo in all of television, trailing only NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” for complete demographic supremacy. Last night’s premiere would be the third most-watched show in all of TV over the past week, trailing only “NCIS,” “The Big Bang Theory” and (depending on the final numbers, which aren’t in yet) the Cowboys-Redskins game it aired directly opposite.
“Okay,” one greedy AMC executive is probably saying this afternoon to a room full of underlings as he scans the ratings from last night, “16 million is great. But what if … and just hear me out here … what if the zombies played football?”
