‘The Walking Dead’ officially claims 2012-13 victory over ‘The Big Bang Theory’

It was a close, hard-fought battle, but in the end, the zombies devoured the geeks to take the title.

Now that all of the numbers are officially in for the 2012-13 season (including DVR viewing figures, which take a while longer to all fall into place), we can now say definitely that “The Walking Dead” season 3 was the most-watched show on television in the key 18-49 demographic that advertisers constantly hope to see. According to TheWrap, the series brought in on average a 7.5 rating when you include all measures, whereas “The Big Bang Theory” landed in second place with a 7.2.

This is an enormous moment for a number of reasons. This is the first time ever that a cable show is the most-popular scripted show on television in the demo, and it also marks the first time in a decade that the top show behind “Sunday Night Football” (which is technically #1) is not named “American Idol.” Maybe networks will take this as a wake-up call that their shows, while accessible to viewers, are not exactly working to get people watching at the end of the day.

When it comes to total viewers, the champion is actually none of the shows mentioned above. Instead, it’s “NCIS,” which continues to bring in around 22 million viewers a week. So how did it manage to beat out “Sunday Night Football” and everything else? The easy answer is that its viewers are older, and most of them do not fall within the demo. (CBS also skews older than any other major network on TV.)

Are you glad that “The Walking Dead” took this victory? If you want to check out some more scoop on the show’s upcoming fourth season, you can do so over here.

Photo: AMC