The Walking Dead season 9 episode 4 ratings rise before Andrew Lincoln’s exit

Leading up to the exit of Andrew Lincoln on The Walking Dead, there is one major question to ponder aside from the story: What are the ratings going to be? Is the exit of Rick really going to bring in good numbers? It’s too early to say, but at least the numbers haven’t leveled off leading up to it.

Related The Walking Dead video! – Be sure to check out some more news discussing the situation with Rick below, and remember to subscribe for some other updates at the CarterMatt YouTube Channel. Also, remember to check out our full The Walking Dead playlist.

So what do we know about the latest numbers? Think in terms of a 2.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic and almost 5.1 million viewers — the best in this live measurement since the premiere earlier this month. While these are, by no means, ratings equal to when the series was at its heyday, they are still something for AMC to be reasonably happy about. Is it bad for them that The Walking Dead isn’t an enormous hit anymore? Absolutely, and they have to take some responsibility for the decisions that led to the steep decline — including never setting an end date here and making viewers think that this story will meander forever. (One of the reasons why we think that the ratings for Game of Thrones have improved over time is because viewers stayed committed — they knew that eventually, we were going to see things come to a close and that matters to a certain extent.

Yet, we don’t want to get so lost in the negative ratings headlines that we forget where The Walking Dead stacks amidst some other competition that is on cable. It’s still far and away better than most.

We do anticipate some sort of improvement for the series moving into next week; it just remains to be seen if that’s going to be a one-time thing (and it feels likely).

Related – Be sure to get some more news regarding Sunday night’s new episode!

What do you think about the latest The Walking Dead ratings, and what they mean to the future of the series? Be sure to share right now in the comments. (Photo: AMC.)