Four new high-profile scripted cable series began last weekend — Starz’s “Camelot,” Showtime’s “The Borgias,” AMC’s “The Killing,” and Reelz Channel’s miniseries “The Kennedys” — and all four came away with impressive ratings for their respective channels, a sign that HBO’s “Game of Thrones” will likely premiere to huge numbers on April 17th.
“Camelot” drew 1.125 million viewers for its debut airing, and 1.573 million combined viewers for its multiple Friday airings. That makes it Starz’s highest-rated series debut ever.
“The Killing” wasn’t quite a record-setter for AMC, but only because “The Walking Dead” is going to be hard to beat for a very long time. The debut airing averaged 2.7 million viewers, making it AMC’s second-biggest debut ever.
“The Borgias” grabbed 1.06 million viewers for its 9 p.m. premiere and a combined 1.49 million for the night, making it Showtime’s highest-rated drama debut since “Dead Like Me” seven years ago.
And “The Kennedys” did quite well for obscure Reelz Channel… It opened with 1.9 million viewers, an impressive number given how few of those 1.9 million probably even knew what or where Reelz was before “The Kennedys” happened. [HitFix]
The only one of these that I caught was “The Killing,” which I thought was excellent despite several well-worn themes (it is, of course, a remake of a Danish series). And it’s nice to see Joel Kinnaman (above, right) in the series. Every time Kinnaman gets work, DJ Qualls goes hungry.
