This should come as no surprise as The Walking Dead is suffering from a ratings drought.
What normally would have been a huge episode, it’s learned the death of Carl in The Walking Dead mid-season premiere was the lowest rated mid-season premiere episode ever for the series.
Sunday’s episode scored a 3.6 rating in the coveted 18-49 age demographic and only drew in 8.3 million viewers, which is nearly down 50% from the mid-season 4 premiere of 15.8 million viewers.
The Walking Dead‘s ratings have been nosediving since Season 7, which is probably due to a variety of factors, but I would say poor writing is mainly to blame.
The cliff hanger at the end of Season 6 probably didn’t help as it pissed off a lot of fans. While true they did return for the Season 7 premiere, it seems once Glenn and Abraham were killed off, viewers exited.
The drawn out Negan story is probably a large factor as well. It basically seems that all you have to do is watch the first and last episode of the recent seasons, and that everything in between is just filler.
I also think the exit of original characters and the intro of new characters is an issue as fans simply don’t care for a lot of the newer characters.
Killing off Carl was a big mistake IMO as the character, at least to me, seemed to be the future where the series was headed. While the “adults” were around prior to the zombie apocalypse, Carl grew up in the “new” world and became a “child” of it. Plus, who wants to see a kid killed off?
In addition to the departure of Chandler Riggs, now it looks as if Lauren Cohan might be leaving The Walking Dead as she signed on for a new ABC pilot, reportedly due to not being happy with AMC and her Walking Dead contract, which saw her getting vastly underpaid compared to Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus. Maggie is another huge fan-favorite, and if she leaves, I expect the ratings slide to continue.
Speaking of not being happy with AMC, it also probably isn’t helping things behind the scene that the producers and creator Robert Kirkman are suing AMC over allegedly getting scammed out of money. It’s probably hard to work for someone and at something when you’re not happy, which could be reflected by the final product being so poor.
To add to that, Chandler Riggs’s father said his son was fired. So was it really story related that Carl was killed off or because of something that happened with the 18-year-old actor? Or something else?
All of the original characters except two have left the show (Lennie James’ Morgan is leaving for Fear The Walking Dead). There is no reason to watch the show anymore.
Mid-season premiere ratings:
Season 4 (2014)– 8.2 rating, 15.8 million viewers
Season 5 (2015)– 8.0 rating, 15.6 million viewers
Season 6 (2016)– 6.8 rating, 13.7 million viewers
Season 3 (2013)– 6.1 rating, 12.3 million
Season 7 (2017)– 5.7 rating, 12 million viewers
Season 2 (2012)– 4.2 rating, 8.1 million viewers
Season 8 (2018)– 3.6 rating, 8.3 million viewers
(note: Season 1 only had six episodes)
