Sunday's Season 2 premiere of “The Walking Dead” broke ratings records for AMC, earning more 18-49 and 25-54-year-old viewers than any other basic cable drama in history.
Drawn by strong word-of-mouth for the zombie apocalypse series — and curiosity about how it would fare with Glen Mazzara replacing Frank Darabont as show runner — hordes of viewers sat zombie-like to follow the fate of sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his band of surviviors.
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The viewership records broke a basic cable record set nearly 10 years ago for a single
drama telecast. The 90-minute episode program earned a 4.8 household rating, and 7.3 million total viewers.
The 4.8 million viewers in the 18-49 demographic — the one most important to advertisers — were up 36 percent over last season's average.The 4.2 viewers in the 25-54 demo were up 38 percent.
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Including the 9 p.m. original airing and re-airings at 10:30 and 12:30, the show had a cumulative 11 million viewers.
The first season of the show had a series average of 3.5 million viewers in the 18-49 group, making it then the most-watched drama series in basic cable history for the demo. The season averaged 5.2 million total viewers.