‘Westworld’ loses some bite versus ‘The Walking Dead’ in live ratings

Going into this past weekend, the presumption was that “Westworld” would be facing its most fearsome competition on the road to ratings dominance in “The Walking Dead.” After all, both are TV shows that fall into that must-see category, and with the Negan mystery getting resolved, the AMC show was going to command live viewership. Otherwise, you run into that situation where your friend texts you with the spoilers and you block his number for the immediate future.

In looking back at the numbers going into Sunday’s fifth episode, “Westworld” did lose a bit of its power versus the zombie drama. Episode 4 tied for a series low with a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic; it would probably be a series low on its own were it not for the fact that episode 2 (which drew the same rating) was available for streaming by many people online going into the episode airing at night. In terms of total viewership, though, episode 4 (1.7 million) did top episode 2 (1.5 million) by a pretty decent margin.

Do we expect a recovery moving forward? To a certain extent, yes. “The Walking Dead” isn’t going anywhere, and the two shows will be going head-to-head for the entirety of the rest of the season. Yet, at the same time it won’t have to worry about the same level of hype that we saw with Negan.

No matter the live ratings, we don’t think it matters too much given that HBO viewers don’t feel the sort of pressure to necessarily watch this show live. They’ve got the resources to check it out either on-demand, on their DVR, or through a service like HBO GO or HBO NOW. So long as there is a season 2, we figure we will be rather satisfied in the end.

Want a refresher on what happened on this past episode of “Westworld”? Then be sure to head over here, since that’s where you can check out our most-recent episode review!