“The Walking Dead” ate up the competition on Sunday night.
The mid-season finale of the AMC horror-drama nabbed a whopping 12.1 million viewers in its initial airing and 7.7 million viewers in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic, according to Nielsen. That puts the first half of Season 4 up 29% over the comparable period last year, when the mid-season finale racked up a still-impressive 10.48 million viewers.
“We couldn”t be happier that audiences are continuing to respond in ever-larger numbers to the outstanding work of this amazingly talented team,” said AMC president Charlie Collier. “We”re only at the mid-point of this fourth season, but I know I speak for the entire cast and crew in Atlanta when I say thank you to the fans for joining in our passion for these characters and their journey.”
Killer ratings for “The Walking Dead” also lifted the Chris Hardwick-hosted after-show “Talking Dead,” which brought in 6 million viewers overall and 3.8 million viewers in the 18-49 demo. Last night’s episode of the talker featured cast members Lauren Cohan, Scott Wilson and executive-producer/”Walking Dead” comic-book creator Robert Kirkman.
In addition to its traditional Nielsen ratings, “The Walking Dead” also ranked as the #1 TV show on Twitter last night, logging 880,450 show-related Tweets and a total of 43.9 million impressions.
“The Walking Dead” Season 4 picks up again on Sunday, February 9.
Did you watch last night’s episode? Let us know in the comments.