‘The Walking Dead’ season 3 not deterred by the Oscars, actually improves rating

Can anything really deter the unstoppable monster that is “The Walking Dead” at the moment? After looking at the latest numbers that have come in from AMC, we are almost willing to wager here that the answer to this question is “no.”

Sunday night’s new episode of the zombie drama end up actually improving its performance from the week before, and scored a staggering 5.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic along with over 11 million viewers. The kicker here? The show was actually airing directly against the Academy Awards, quite possibly the most-watched, non-football event on TV for the entire year. You would traditionally expect a show to at least lose a little bit of momentum considering the competition, but fans of this show are turning out to be some of the most devoted on TV.

Then again, you could also make a simple argument here that the same sort of people who watch the Oscars are not the people who watch “The Walking Dead,” but either way, the success of this show should be used as a template for all television networks to think about when it comes to future endeavors: quality does matter more than anything else. If people like your show enough, they will choose it over other events and you don’t have to worry about awards shows or time changes really getting in the way of your numbers. So long as “The Walking Dead” stays around the level it is at now, we imagine the show staying put on AMC for quite a long time.

Are you surprised in any way by the devotion of “The Walking Dead” fans, even to the extent that the Oscars are in some ways irrelevant? Be sure to share some of your thoughts below, and you can watch a preview for Sunday night’s episode over at the link here.

Photo: AMC