‘The Walking Dead’ drew its highest-ever ratings Sunday night

AMC’s The Walking Dead continues to be an unstoppable ratings juggernaut… kind of like a zombie that just won’t die. But you already knew that metaphor was coming.

Sunday’s season 5 premiere (Oct. 12) scored the series’ highest ratings ever, drawing an estimated 17.3 million viewers. That’s up seven percent from the show’s season 4 debut. Ratings were also up by six percent in the age 18-49 demographic. Factoring in DVR viewing, that number is expected to exceed 22 million watchers.

As Matt Yoder wrote around this time last year for The AP Party, not even the NFL and Sunday Night Football can stand up to the stampede of zombies from The Walking Dead. The show beat the Giants-Eagles Sunday night game by 2.5 million viewers in that 18-49 demo.

Talking Dead, AMC’s aftershow hosted by Chris Hardwick, also drew record ratings with 6.9 million viewers, 4.5 million of them in the 18-49 demo. That represents a 34 percent increase.

The Walking Dead was also huge on Twitter Sunday night, generating 1.3 million tweets. According to AMC, the show is also one of the first in Twitter history to take all 10 trending topics in the U.S. while it was on the air.

AMC has already ordered a sixth season of The Walking Dead, if these numbers hadn’t already warranted a renewal.

[Entertainment Weekly]

About Ian Casselberry

Ian is a writer, editor, and podcaster. You can find his work at Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He's written for Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation.

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