newsmakers

newsmakers

‘Walking Dead’ season finale draws 15.8M

NEW YORK

Zombies and basketball have been hot television properties during the past week.

The Nielsen company said that AMC’s fifth season finale for “The Walking Dead” on Sunday was seen by 15.8 million viewers. That’s the third-biggest audience ever for the hit drama and its best for a season finale. Its largest live audience, of 17.3 million, was for the first episode of this season.

“It’s tough enough in today’s competitive environment to command attention, and even harder to hold on to it,” said Charlie Collier, AMC president, expressing pleasure in the show’s growth through five seasons.

“The Walking Dead” didn’t quite match the numbers for Fox’s new sensation, “Empire,” which drew 17.6 million for the finale of its first season earlier in March.

But the AMC finale reached 10.4 million viewers age 18 to 49, the key demographic for advertising sales, and “Empire” had 8.8 million in that age group, Nielsen said.

Given how television is watched, however, those numbers are like reporting the score of a baseball game during the seventh-inning stretch. Both shows are expected to gain millions more viewers when people who watch through on-demand services or DVRs are added in during the coming weeks.

For the week of March 23-29, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “NCIS,” CBS, 16.23 million; “The Walking Dead,” AMC, 15.78 million; NCAA Men’s Basketball: Notre Dame vs. Kentucky, TBS, 14.75 million; “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 14.42 million; “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 13.85 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 13.83 million; “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 12.2 million; “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 11.62 million; “Madam Secretary,” CBS, 11.47 million; “NCAA Studio Show” (Saturday), TBS, 10.83 million.

Associated Press