Season 9: 'The Walking Dead' loses half of its audience at its premiere | TV
The zombies of The Walking Dead They have seen better days. The premiere of the ninth season of the original AMC series (in Spain is seen on Fox) last Sunday has left the second worst audience data in the US since its inception. It was precisely the first season in 2010, with 5,350,000 spectators, the least seen premiere (at the end of the season it had an average of 5,240,000). The start of the ninth season was followed by 6,080,000 viewers, 47% less than a year ago with the eighth and light years of the 17,300,000 viewers who saw the release of the fifth in October 2014 (with a final average of 14,380,000).
The low of the audience has occurred in a special way among adults between 18 and 49 years, with a drop of 51%. In spite of the bad data, it remained the most watched program on Sunday in the US cable among the spectators of that strip, ahead of sports competitions, series like Shameless or the program of the Kardashians.
A year ago the premiere was followed by 11,440,000 viewers and at the end the series (of 16 episodes and broadcast in two sets with a long break at Christmas) had an average of 7,820,000 viewers.
From the AMC chain blame the downturn to a particularly tough Sunday for the competition of sports programs and games, something that happens every year, reports the magazine Entertainment Weekly. Also every year the premiere has been on a Sunday in October. The chain emphasizes that many viewers this year could see the premiere episode on its premium website without ads 24 hours before its premiere on line.
| Season | Year | Spectators at its premiere | Average of the season |
| 1 | 2010 | 5.35 million | 5.24 million |
| 2 | 2011 | 7.26 million | 6.90 million |
| 3 | 2012 | 10.87 million | 10.75 million |
| 4 | 2013 | 16.11 million | 13.33 million |
| 5 | 2014 | 17.30 million | 14.38 million |
| 6 | 2015 | 14.63 million | 13.15 million |
| 7 | 2016 | 17,03 million | 11.35 million |
| 8 | 2017 | 11.44 million | 7.82 million |
| 9 | 2018 | 6.08 million | ? |
In the ninth season two of its main actors, Andrew Lincoln and Lauren Cohen (Rick Grimes and Maggie, respectively) leave the series, something that had raised a bit of expectation after the bad reviews of the eighth installment. It is also known that somehow dead characters will appear, such as Hershel (the actor who played him died last weekend) or Shane. And the creators do nothing but insist that new characters and plots will appear to give it another air, but, for now, all this has not been enough incentive to keep afloat a series that in the last three years has been losing viewers by the way, although not in such a bloody way.
