‘The Walking Dead’ season 7 continues live+same day ratings slide

Is “The Walking Dead” now officially past its expiration date as an exorbitant TV hit? We’re starting to wonder that after looking at some of the most-recent numbers.

We shared recently the ratings for “The Cell” last week, which were the lowest in terms of live+same day figures in the 18-49 demographic since 2013. Unfortunately, the ratings for this past episode entitled “Service” did not turn things around. As a matter of fact, the ratings slide only continued. This episode drew a 5.4 rating in the demo, down from the 5.7 generated by the episode that aired before it. It also dropped to 11.4 million viewers.

When you look at the rest of the TV landscape, the good news for now is that there is nothing else out there that actually rivals the AMC series in the 18-49 measure even with lower ratings. “Empire” has lost some of its steam so far this season, and to go along with that further, we’re seeing a little bit of a weaker performance out of some other popular shows like “The Voice” and “The Big Bang theory.” No scripted show is coming for the crown except for maybe “Game of Thrones,” but “The Walking Dead” still has a pretty big margin over it; if it maintains its current level of ratings, it should be fine.

We know that there are so many ways now that viewers watch TV beyond just doing so live, so to proclaim that these are the only numbers for any of these shows would be incredibly misleading. “The Walking Dead” is still enormously popular; we just tend to not look as much as repeat / DVR numbers because ad revenue is what means the most to a given show, and these live figures are the ones that really make-or-break things more than anything else.

You can read our full review of “Service,” if you haven’t seen it already, over at the link here. (Photo: AMC.)