The Walking Dead season 8 premiere ratings, Game of Thrones comparisons

In looking ahead to the release of The Walking Dead season 8 premiere ratings, it felt clear there would be a drop-off. The show’s come under more fire creatively than it has in the past, there’s an oversaturation of the zombie market at the moment, and we also do feel as though the show is hurt by not having a set end in sight. People don’t necessarily like to do anything indefinitely; we’ve said this a few times now, but one of the things that really aided Game of Thrones the past year or so is it being known that the end was in sight. That caused people to strap in and prepare for the final two years.

Now, let’s get back to these Walking Dead season 8 premiere ratings given that there is quite a bit of content to discuss here. This episode generated over a 5.0 rating and more than 11.4 million viewers — these are not terrible numbers by any means, even if this is slowest start for the season since season 2. We could go on and on about how the show is not as strong as it once was, but one of the realities that you have to remember here is that The Walking Dead was at one point the TV version of a wrecking ball. It’s still getting higher ratings than almost anything else out there; it’s just not dominating in the way that it did. This premiere episode is down about 39% from the season 7 premiere, which of course featured the (year-old spoiler alert) death of Glenn and Abraham.

(On the flip side, the premiere episode was down only 7% versus the average season 7 rating in the demo — if it keeps its numbers throughout the year the decrease doesn’t look bad at all. The problem is that this show tends to lose a lot of viewers following its premieres.)

For those wanting to know the comparison between The Walking Dead and the most-recent season of Game of Thrones — one that we’re tracking at CarterMatt most of the year — the season 7 finale of the HBO epic actually had more viewers in 12.1 million plus a 5.7 rating, not that demos really matter to a premium cable network. However, as a whole The Walking Dead is currently beating the Game of Thrones season 7 average. This is just a comparison we find fascinating since these two shows have been on the air a reasonably similar amount of time; we do expect Game of Thrones to be firmly #1 for its final season, whenever that does end up airing.

What do you think about the new Walking Dead season 8 premiere ratings?

What do you think that this says about this show, and where do you think it will end up in comparison to Game of Thrones by the end of the season? Share below!

Meanwhile, you can read our full review of the season 8 premiere here; also, like us on Facebook to get more news on The Walking Dead and other shows we cover at CarterMatt. (Photo: AMC.)