‘The Walking Dead’ season 7, episode 5 continues ratings slide

twdIs the fall of “The Walking Dead” in the ratings starting to become huge news? We’re not sure that we’d go that far just yet, but it is starting to fee more and more like this is something that we should be paying rather-close attention to based on the numbers that have been coming out over the past few weeks.

Let’s put things in perspective a little bit. The show’s recent premiere ended up drawing in total an 8.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic, one of the show’s biggest ratings ever. Meanwhile, Sunday’s episode drew a 5.2, one of the show’s lowest ratings in years.

Has interest in the series really faded that fast, or are there other factors in here, as well? We think it’s a complicated mixture of several different things contributing to this overall performance.

First and foremost, look at things from the vantage point of hype. The show created such an epic cliffhanger last season that it got many people excited about what was going to be coming up next. However, at the same exact time they expended a tremendous amount of capital in creating this said ending, which led in turn to viewers getting turned off. Once they learned that Glenn and Abraham were gone, much of their incentive to keep watching was likely deflated.

Another story-related issue may be the speed in which we’re now looking at events. So far this season we’ve covered a relatively short period of time, and bounced around to a number of different places. It was great to have a Maggie update, but at the same time how many people out there were passionately interested in seeing precisely what was going to be happening at the Hilltop? We cannot imagine that it was in particularly high demand.

Note that many of these viewers are likely also switching over to watching via DVR or On-Demand, and those measures matter; they just don’t matter as much as live ratings in terms of ad revenue.

Why do you think we’re seeing the ratings for “Walking Dead” fall? Share below — if you’re viewing this on AMP, then be sure to click to view the non-AMP version to leave your comment. (Photo: AMC.)

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