Cable ratings: The Walking Dead, Feud: Bette & Joan, and Big Little Lies
The Feud: Bette & Joan premiere ratings are now officially in, and based on the numbers that we’ve seen to date, there is basically no reason to fight at all.
The first episode of the FX series featuring Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon ended up drawing in total a 0.5 in the 18-49 demographic and more than 2.26 million viewers. While we wouldn’t call these incredible ratings, they’re far from terrible, especially for a cable series airing late on Sunday night. They weren’t all that far off from Elementary on CBS, and you have to remember that this network in general is incredibly time-shifted, with many viewers checking out the show after the fact.
Given that Feud already has a second season coming up that is themed all about Charles and Diana, there’s no major reason to worry about its future. The ratings discussion that we have here is mostly born out of fun.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you can check out a preview for the next new episode of Feud just by heading over to the link here.
More ratings trouble for The Walking Dead
After getting off to a decent start for the second half of season 7, Sunday’s episode “Say Yes” ended up posting a 4.7 rating in the demo and just over 10 million viewers, the show’s lowest numbers of the season and the lowest demo numbers in many years. These are still great numbers in comparison to everything else, but you still have to remember for a minute here that lower ratings are still lower ratings. You can’t avoid reporting on them just because their ratings are better than anything else. Given that there is no competition, you have to compare it mostly to itself.
Big Little Lies recovers big
After understandably falling for its second week (remember for a minute that it was airing against the Oscars), the star-studded HBO series recovered with 1.04 million viewers. (Given that the demo ratings don’t matter for a subscription network, we don’t feel compelled to report them.) This is the second-best rating for the show behind the premiere, but it gives a clear indication that the show is going to keep building momentum. We’ll see if that momentum translates to the numbers.
What did you watch over the weekend, and are you surprised by any of these numbers in particular? Be sure to share your thoughts with a comment right now! (Photo: FX.)