AMC's Walking Dead and MTV's Jersey Shore remain at the top of the cable ratings chart this week, although both are down a few tenths from last week. Nevertheless, each program remains the top-rated program with young adults in their respective time periods, beating all broadcast and cable competition. Sunday at 9:00: #1 Walking Dead (3.5), #2 Once Upon a Time (3.4). Thursday at 10:00: #1 Jersey Shore (2.7), #2 Awake (2.0).
Click "read more" to see the updated cable chart.
The top two programs on cable this week aired on Sunday against the not-what-it-used-to-be but still very big Academy Awards on ABC. Most notable was Walking Dead on AMC at 9:00 pm, just when the awards ceremony was getting rolling. Facing the huge entertainment special, Walking Dead actually was up over last week, from a 3.6 to a 3.8 rating this week with Adults 18-49. The zombie drama scored a very credible second place to the Oscars (11.7) and far ahead of NBC's Celebrity Apprentice original episode (1.8), FOX's Family Guy repeat (1.6) and CBS's Mentalist repeat (0.9).
Earlier in the evening, the NBA All-Star Game faced off mostly against the Red Carpet arrivals shows on ABC and E!. The offense-heavy game (final score 152-149) scored a 3.3 rating from 7:16 pm on, ahead of the first half hour of ABC's Red Carpet arrivals (2.8 from 7:00-7:30) but falling to a solid second place to ABC's 7:30 (4.0) and 8:00 (6.2) Red Carpet half hours. The 7:30 portion of the Red Carpet arrivals on E! peaked at a 1.5 rating, a very good number for the second-tier cable network but nothing close to what ABC was able to deliver at the same time.
Personally, I never understood why broadcast networks, which pay huge license fees to the movie, music and TV academies (as well as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association), don't demand exclusive rights to broadcast live from the Red Carpet. Yes, it's only a 1.5 rating that E! is delivering, but most of that rating could be added directly to the network's own arrival show. Of course, Comcast owns both NBC and E! -- so let's put the Golden Globes aside because there is a corporate interest to allow E! at the Beverly Hilton. But for what ABC pays the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, they should own the event entirely. If E! wants a live camera, let them set up on a public sidewalk on the other side of Hollywood Blvd.
Jersey Shore has bottomed out a 2.9 rating Thursday at 10, still enough to make it #1 in the time period this week (ahead of the 2.6 for The Mentalist on CBS). The 2.0 for Gold Rush on Discovery Friday at 9 pm also puts it comfortably in first place in that hour, ahead of second place Grimm on NBC (1.5). As we move down the list, the numbers start to fall behind the broadcast competition. For example, Pawn Stars on History (1.8 Monday at 10:00 and 1.9 at 10:30) falls just behind ABC's Castle (2.1) for fifth place in the hour.
AMC's Walking Dead remains the top-rated cable program with Adults 18-49 this past week, settling down from its lofty season premiere rating the week before. Jersey Shore on MTV also drifted down (losing a tenth of a rating point to a 2.9), and Teen Mom 2 (also on MTV) tumbled half a rating point to a 2.0. Still good numbers, but like the broadcast competition, even top shows are eroding this mid-season at an alarming rate, well before the more expected swoon when the weather warms up and Daylight Saving Time hits.
Click "read more" to see the updated weekly cable chart.
AMC's Walking Dead is the new king of the weekly cable ratings chart, with a terrific 4.2 Adult 18-49 rating for Sunday's season premiere. Read more on the Walking Dead premiere here. The rest of the top-rated cable programs are pretty much unchanged. While Jersey Shore continues its downward trend, the other MTV hit, Teen Mom 2, ticked up nicely. Pawn Stars (History) and Gold Rush (Discovery) continue to deliver their reliably solid audience levels.
Also, new to the chart is History's Swamp People. While a 1.9 rating is very solid for a cable show, I'm not sure it justifies advertisement in the Super Bowl. Click "read more" for the complete chart.
Previously On... THE WALKING DEAD: Our erstwhile humans spent many, many episodes on a farm owned by cranky vet Hershel (Scott Wilson), while they searched for the missing Sophia (Madison Lintz). There were lots of lengthy conversations about the meaning of life in a zombie-infected universe, and whether it was worth going on--let alone having a baby, as it turned out Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) was going to do. Meanwhile, her husband Rick (Andrew Lincoln) revealed that he knew about the affair Lori had been having with the increasingly Travis Bickle-like Shane (Jon Bernthal) while Rick was believed dead. Glenn (Steven Yuen) found romance with Hershel's daughter Maggie (Lauren Cohan). And then it developed that Hershel had been keeping a barn full of Walkers, including Hershel's wife, and even feeding them to keep them "alive," because he believed that one day there might be a cure. When Shane found out about the Walker barn, he started with the slaughtering, and at the very end of the fall finale, we discovered that--guess what?--Sophia was in there too, and had been for all the many, many weeks we'd all been on the farm. Rick shot her in the head, so that this plotline could finally, mercifully end
A pretty typical week on cable in prime time, with ESPN's Monday Night Football leading the way (Green Bay Packers thumping the Minnesota Vikings). On the scripted front, AMC's Walking Dead is ahead by a mile. The program's lead-out, Hell on Wheels, dropped a big four tenths of a rating point, from a 1.9 last week to a 1.5.
Most of the other cable shows were well within their normal range.
It's been a good week for the sport of football (except if you happen to work at Penn State). The Sunday Night Football game on NBC averaged an 8.8 rating with Adults 18-49, the Saturday night college football game on CBS (#1 vs #2 teams) scored a 7.2 rating, and the ESPN Monday Night Football game averaged a 6.9 rating. Two NFC teams (Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles) and a close, back and forth contest put MNF back on track.
Walking Dead on AMC bounced back from a weak number last Sunday, and Gold Rush on Discovery Friday grew even stronger. American Horror Story on FX Wednesday has leveled off at a very solid 1.6 rating.
ESPN's Monday Night Football rebounded to more normal levels last night and moved back into its usual #1 spot on the cable Adult 18-49 rating chart. (Kansas City upset San Diego in overtime.) On AMC, Walking Dead is still the top scripted program on cable this week, but the 3.1 rating, while still very good, is down considerably from the past few weeks (which are now listed on the right side of the chart below).
FX's Sons of Anarchy is steady at a 2.0 rating, while the Wednesday FX hit American Horror Story continues to grow nicely and is headed for that 2-rating level soon. More disturbingly, MTV's Beavis & Butt-head returned to the cable landscape with a very solid 1.8 young adult rating. I guess Newton Minnow was right.
ESPN's Monday Night Football this week was down from a 6.9 to a 5.0 rating this week. Blame AFC teams and a lopsided score. Jersey Shore was down a tenth of a rating point and pushed into third place by a very good season premiere of Walking Dead on AMC. BET's Hip Hop Awards scored a 2.1 and edged the best baseball could do on cable this week, a 1.9 for Sunday's concluding Game 6 of the National League Championship Series. It's going to be a tough World Series for FOX.
Frank Darabont who? AMC returned THE WALKING DEAD to its schedule last night, and viewers were as ravenous for it as its monsters are for human flesh. The show did an incredible 3.8 rating in 18-49s, outrating everything on network television except football. That was up 25% from last season's already-smash seaon finale, and 36% above the season average. Plus millions more people watched the show in re-airings through the night, so the cumulative number may be more like a 5+. Overall, the 11 million people who tuned in last night set a new record for the highest rated drama in basic cable history.
Since we last saw our rag-tag band of survivors, they've had to endure the loss of their leader, the man most responsible for mapping out their initial strategies and saving them along the way from all manner of deadly predators... 
Our characters who survived the death trap that the CDC in Atlanta turned out to be have a new goal: Fort Benning, 125 miles away. But as they start to make their way down the highway, they encounter an impassable jam of crashed cars and trucks, a faulty radiator on the RV, and something new: a "herd" of zombie Walkers, dozens of them all looking for human flesh. Luckily, they're still none-too-smart and none-too-fast (and their sense of smell seems to have disappeared), so they're mostly avoided or dispensed with. But one does go after young Sophia (Madison Lintz), and Sheriff Rick (Andrew Lincoln) goes after her. When Rick has to dispatch a couple of Walkers, Sophia is lost, and the next day most of the group combines in search of her. Meanwhile, the characters deal a bit with the aftereffects of last season's storylines: Andrea (Laurie Holden) is furious that Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) didn't let her self-immolate at the CDC as she wanted to, while Shane (Jon Bernthal) decides he's going to split off from the group, rather than co-exist with Rick's wife and his former lover Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies).
When AMC was done confirming (but not explaining) Frank Darabont's ex-showrunner status at The Walking Dead and swearing they'll never, ever do anything like the season finale of The Killing again, they found time at the Television Critics Association gathering today to announce a premiere date for their new drama HELL ON WHEELS. The historical adventure about building the transcontinental railroad, starring Anson Mount and Common, and created by Joe and Tony Gayton, will start on November 6, and as expected, its Sunday 10PM timeslot will have the benefit of the Darabont-less Walking Dead as lead-in. Look for a pilot report on Hell On Wheels here soon.
UPDATE: Glen Mazzara, who'd been Frank Darabont's #2 on the WALKING DEAD writing staff, has indeed been appointed to take over showrunning duties. (Darabont's continued presence, if any, is still being discussed.) Mazzara has a lot of experience as a writer/producer on shows like Hawthorne, Crash and The Shield, but not as a show creator--and Walking Dead, with only 6 episodes in its first season, is still forming its creative vision. No doubt all fingers at AMC are firmly in the "crossed" position.
