Without Chandler Riggs, The Walking Dead ratings fall already

In some ways, this was inevitable — and it’s now very much a fact. The Walking Dead ratings are now in and without Chandler Riggs’ Carl on board, fewer people are interested in the AMC series than before.

In terms of live+same-day metrics, this past The Walking Dead episode ended up generating a 2.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic and slightly over 6.8 million viewers. In comparison to just about everything else on cable, this performance is still pretty darn great. In comparison to the rest of The Walking Dead, it’s not so much. Put this viewership into perspective with the 11+ million viewers who watched the show on average during season 7, or the 17 million who watched the first episode of season 7 when the series lost both Abraham and Glenn within a short period of time. That is a pretty incredible drop.

The ratings were down before Carl, and a pretty sizable part of that is likely just due to viewer fatigue. That is inevitable with a show like this that has been on the air for as long as The Walking Dead has. We’ve said this many times over at this point, but one of the things that The Walking Dead really should have done a long time ago was figure out some sort of definite end date. Because of their decision to not do that, it just feels like the series is wandering along aimlessly and there isn’t a specific thing to look forward to. That is frustrating for some viewers who really just want to know how the series is going to end at this point, or at least have some hope that the end is near. That just doesn’t seem to be happening right now, and it doesn’t seem to be a priority from anyone in production either.

Of course, beyond that nobody seems to be altogether happy to be losing Carl either.  why would they be? This is far and away  one of the series’ most popular characters, someone who was the heart and soul of the group and there is a gaping hole left without him there. There’s nothing that production can do about it now;  the decision was made, and the series just has to move along. We will see if there is a way that it can recover.

At this point, the only thing that The Walking Dead may be able to do is just designate when the show is ending, and then promote the heck out of the final season or two that comes up. We know that there is a season 9 for sure, but beyond that is anyone’s guess.

Related – Preview the next Walking Dead episode

Are you surprised that the Walking Dead ratings are what they are? Share and they attach comments!

Meanwhile, like CarterMatt on Facebook to get additional news now on The Walking Dead. (Photo: AMC.)