‘Walking Dead’ Debut Down; Still Devours 14.6M Viewers

The Walking Dead is back with a bang, with a Premiere that saw a military-precise operation going inch-perfectly, before the show suddenly remembered it thrives on death and despair, and rapidly veered off course – literally.

The season six debut came after its prequel series, “Fear the Walking Dead“, delivered the highest-rated first season of any series in cable history. The National Football League game gathered 19.7 million viewers to 14.6 million for TWD.

This audience, while massive, was down from the season five debut, which swarmed TV with 17.3 million viewers – the show’s best performance to date. Time-delayed numbers for this week aren’t immediately available. It’s worth noting that this is the first season of The Walking Dead that FOX United Kingdom has aired in conjunction with The Talking Dead, after trialling the talk show companion previous year with the season five finale.

Still, “The Walking Dead” was second in popularity only to “NCIS” among television dramas this past week.

ESPN won its sixth consecutive weekly ratings crown, averaging 4.1 million viewers, followed by TBS’ 3.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

Today’s TV talk includes a few news about “The Walking Dead” Season 6 premiere ratings, which were healthy but not up to the AMC hit’s record-breaking past; and the announcement that Donald Trump, never one to avoid the camera, will host “Saturday Night Live.”