Cable ratings: ‘Game of Thrones’ steady; ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ down slightly

We’d call it a ratings battle between “Fear the Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones” on Sunday night, but there are a pair of problems with such a statement: It’s not competitive for one, and the two shows aren’t really working to create that much of a rivalry when you think about it.

Instead, what we have instead is a case of two shows that are both popular, and are finding a way to coexist in a way where they can both be winners.

Let’s start with the HBO mega-hit, which drew for the second straight week a 3.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic per TVbythenumbers. This is the second straight week that the show has maintained this number, and also the second straight week where the show is up versus season 5. the season 6 average is at present up versus the prior year, as well, but it’s still early. Let’s see what happens when we get later this month and into Memorial Day Weekend, which is commonly a time when numbers do tend to slip a little bit.

Meanwhile, “Fear the Walking Dead” ended up seeing its own ratings slide on Sunday down to a 2.0. That may sound bad, but it is a minor decrease of a tenth in the demo in comparison to the prior week. This is far below the flagship series, but we think that AMC has to be fine with this rating given that this is a spin-off, it’s airing against the #2 show on cable, and they’ve already renewed it for a third season. There’s no reason to be concerned here, especially since “Fear” is still beating everything on network TV that airs on Sundays.

We’ll have some other ratings news shortly. For now, head over to this link in the event you want some other TV news on all we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: AMC.)