After more than a decade, The Walking Dead franchise is still kicking for AMC.
Sunday night’s premiere of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live delivered 3M viewers after three days of viewing, according to Nielsen. That makes it the biggest premiere night audience for a new AMC series in six years, since 2018’s premiere of The Terror (that episode had a lead-in from The Walking Dead).
The episode also performed well on streaming, according to the company. The Ones Who Live premiere is now the most-watched episode of any show ever on AMC+. No specific numbers were released, but AMC did say the show’s viewership on streaming has already outpaced the first week of viewership for any season premiere on the platform.
Additionally, Sunday was the biggest day for direct-to-consumer sign-ups in the history of AMC+.
AMC has been keen on Live+3 numbers for several years now, rather than immediate ratings. The tactic makes sense, considering the realities of how audiences are watching television nowadays (that is, rarely live). Viewership has overall been on the decline for the franchise over the past five years or so, but these figures indicate there’s still a strong, dedicated audience for The Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is the sixth spinoff in the TWD universe, starring Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira.
It is a love story between Rick and Michonne, kept apart by distance, an unstoppable power and the ghosts of who they were. They are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead — and, ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they’ve ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors? Without each other, are they even alive — or will they find that they, too, are the walking dead?
The cast also includes Pollyanna McIntosh returning as Jadis from The Walking Dead, Terry O’Quinn as Beale, Matt Jeffers and Lesley-Ann Brandt as Pearl.
