“The Walking Dead” just had its lowest-rated season finale to-date, with the final episode of Season 9 drawing 5 million total viewers.
It’s not all bad news, however: That sum is up 21 percent from the prior episode.
The previous low for a “Walking Dead” season finale was just under 6 million viewers and a 3.0 key-demo rating among adults 18-49. Those were the Live + Same Day numbers for the show’s Season 1 finale.
Among adults 18-49, Sunday’s Episode 916 had a 1.9 rating and 2.4 million viewers, up 25 percent from the previous week.
For those ages 25-54, the season finale received a 2.3 rating and 2.8 million viewers, up 21 percent from Episode 915.
The Season 9 finale was the second highest-rated episode of the season’s second half, behind the midseason premiere.
“The Walking Dead” remains cable’s No. 1 show and is TV’s No. 2 drama behind only NBC’s “This Is Us. As a matter of fact, excluding sports and news, the 16 episodes of “Walking Dead” Season 9 are the 16 highest-rated cable telecasts of the season among adults 18-49 and 25-54.
AMC prefers to work with Nielsen numbers that count three days of delayed viewing. Those stats will become available on Friday and will significantly increase these preliminary numbers.
Across the first seven episodes of Season 9B, the average three-day audience growth has been +47 percent for total viewers, +52 percent for adults 18-49 and +51 percent among adults 25-54. Those are the highest rates of time-shifted viewing ever for the series.