The Walking Dead was once a cultural phenomenon, drawing in thousands and thousands of audience each and every week and breaking cable tv information during its 11 seasons on the air. However, in the ultimate years of the hit series, the display saw a steep decline in viewership.
The query of exactly when the decline began is complex, however many fanatics and critics have said that the show only lost viewership thanks to the brutal death of fan-favorite Glenn Rhee, performed by way of Steven Yeun. There's indubitably that there have been signs of bother for The Walking Dead after Glenn's death, but it certainly wasn't the first or last sign that the show had lost the plot original viewers sought when tuning in. So what exactly contributed to the decline in The Walking Dead's viewership, and was manufacturing aware of it at the time?
When Did Viewership For The Walking Dead Start To Decline?
Fans of the show have pointed out that blaming Glenn's death for the decline in viewership is lazy. In a Reddit thread on the official Walking Dead subreddit, devoted lovers of the display have pointed out that blaming Glenn's death for the decline in viewership is lazy.
"It's just a convenient excuse to blame the show's decline on "fickle" fans rather than on the show getting stale. If anything, Glenn's death kept ratings up. The decline happened a whole season later. It wasn't Glenn's death. It was the badly executed aftermath," wrote the writer of the sub-thread.
"Ratings peaked during season 5 and were already on the decline from season 6. There is no direct correlation with Glenn's death in season 7 and the decline in ratings," commented some other fan on the thread. This is in fact true, with The Walking Dead having its best possible rankings for live perspectives all over its fifth season, which aired from October 2014 to March 2015.
According to Nielsen ratings, the Season 5 premiere drew a record-breaking 17.29 million viewers, which used to be the highest-rated episode in the display's historical past at the moment—the season as a whole averaged 14.38 million viewers in line with episode, with the midseason premiere drawing 15.Sixty four million audience and the season finale drawing 15.78 million viewers.
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The luck of Season Five may also be attributed to a number of elements, including the creation of new characters equivalent to Aaron and Father Gabriel, the return of fan-favorite characters like Morgan Jones, and the answer of storylines akin to the Terminus storyline from Season 4. Additionally, the display's marketing campaign for Season 5 used to be particularly effective, generating buzz and anticipation among fanatics.
So sure, the viewership for AMC's "The Walking Dead" declined after Glenn was once killed in Season 7, however live viewership had obviously been on the decline for a couple of seasons at that point. While it's most likely that Glenn's death contributed to the decline in viewership, other elements have additionally played a task, similar to the display's increasingly more dark and violent tone and the departure of some key cast members.
Why Were Viewers So Angry With Glenn's Death On The Walking Dead?
Glenn Rhee, one of the authentic characters on The Walking Dead, was once a fan favorite for his sort center, fast thinking, and unwavering loyalty to his pals. So when he was once brutally killed off in the first episode of Season 7, fans were understandably upset.
Several components contributed to why audience have been so indignant with Glenn's death. First and most important, Glenn had been a liked personality since the very starting of the display. He was one of the few characters who had survived since Season 1.
As noted via Vox, "Glenn was the heart of the show, the one character who embodied hope and goodness in a world overrun by zombies." Killing him off felt like a betrayal to many fanatics.
His courting with Maggie Greene, performed by way of the iconic Lauren Cohan, was also a cornerstone of the show. Fans were in reality devoted to seeing the dating remaining throughout the series.
Glenn's death was additionally a specifically brutal and graphic one. In the episode "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be," Glenn is overwhelmed to death by means of Negan with a barbed wire-covered baseball bat in entrance of his pals and loved ones.
The scene was so violent and stressful that even some of the actors on the show had been uncomfortable with it. As Steven Yeun, the actor who played Glenn, stated in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, "I'd be lying if I said I didn't have an emotional attachment to that character... It's also just gnarly to see somebody you care about get killed like that."
Fans had seen so much of gnarly, disgusting, and downright scary stuff happen on The Walking Dead by way of that time, but seeing it occur in particular to Glenn struck a chord with fans.
"My sister was the biggest Walking Dead fan and ran out of the room when Glenn got whacked. Hasn't watched since," wrote one consumer on Reddit. "I used to watch the show with my ex-partner every week. He stopped watching right after that episode, he never watched it again. He thought it was overall too gruesome and too depressing," wrote another.
How Many People Watched The Walking Dead Through Its Final Season?
By the time The Walking Dead series finale was released, the display used to be being launched both live on cable and on its streaming provider AMC+. Releasing The Walking Dead on a streaming provider turned into a need for AMC and all different cable networks as a result of of how steeply reside cable viewership has declined overall.
(*7*)According to a record by means of Nielsen, the reasonable number of traditional TV audience in the United States dropped from 103.Four million in 2010 to 88.1 million in 2020. This represents a decline of approximately 15%, or 15 million viewers, over 10 years.
The decline in are living cable viewership has been extra pronounced among more youthful audiences. For instance, a survey conducted through Deloitte in 2020 found that best 52% of millennials and 38% of Gen Z watch are living TV. This largely contrasts with 80% of child boomers who nonetheless watch are living TV.
The series finale pulled in 3.1 million live cable viewers, up 36% from the penultimate episode. It used to be the largest live viewership that the show had received in over two years. While it was once considered important at the time, in comparability to the quantity of viewers the show was getting in its heyday, it's not anything.
"Every show gets stale. It just so happened Glenn died right around the time TWD got stale. The show would have lost viewership even if Glenn lived. Most likely sooner. You really think with everything else that happened (Rick gone, Michonne gone, Carl's death, etc) that Glenn's presence would have stemmed the decline," requested a Reddit person in The Walking Dead's Reddit thread.
With over 100 upvotes since its contemporary posting, it kind of feels enthusiasts are beginning to agree that the decline was once written in the stars a ways ahead of Glenn's death.
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