Last night's Season 4 finale of The Walking Dead set a new finale record, delivering 15.7 million viewers and 10.2 million adults 18-49. The dramatic episode anchored a record-breaking night on AMC, with the live Talking Dead aftershow delivering a series record 7.3 million viewers and 4.7 million adults 18-49. To cap the night, the third season finale of AMC's Comic Book Men at midnight was watched by 1.1 million viewers and 715,000 adults 18-49.
Season 4 set a new viewership record for The Walking Dead, averaging 13.3 million live/same day viewers per episode and 8.6 million adults 18-49, an increase of +24%/+22% over the season three average.
Here's what AMC president Charlie Collier had to say in a statement.
"The linear television business is Dead and well. Thanks to Robert Kirkman, Scott Gimple, the other terrific executive producers and the entire cast, crew and network for working together to bring the fans (myself included) another Unforgettable season of The Walking Dead. To see this show serve as the centerpiece of a truly historic night on AMC is truly gratifying. So many played a role in this success, across all three shows, in giving the fans a reason to continue to return in ever-greater numbers. And so we say, until next fall, 'Welcome to Terminus.'"
Following the 9 pm premiere of The Walking Dead, AMC presented Talking Dead at 10 pm. Hosted by Chris Hardwick, the most-watched Talking Dead episode in series history featured Executive Producer and showrunner Scott Gimple and, for the first time on the show, Andrew Lincoln.
Key Nielsen Highlights for the Season 4 finale of The Walking Dead
- 9 pm airing - 8.0 national HH rating with 15.7 million viewers
- 9 pm airing - 8.0 national rating with 10.2 million Adults 18-49
- 9 pm airing - 7.8 national rating with 9.3 million Adults 25-54
Key Nielsen Highlights for the Season 3 finale of Talking Dead
- 10 pm airing - 3.8 national HH rating with 7.3 million viewers
- 10 pm airing - 3.7 national rating with 4.7 million Adults 18-49
- 10 pm airing - 3.7 national rating with 4.4 million Adults 25-54
Key Nielsen Highlights for the Season 3 finale of Comic Book Men
- 12 am airing - 0.8 national HH rating with 1.1 million viewers
- 12 am airing - 0.6 national rating with 715,000 Adults 18-49
- 12 am airing - 0.6 national rating with 666,000 Adults 25-54
The Season 4 finale of The Walking Dead also dominated TV-related Twitter activity, and was the #1 non-sports related program of the night on Twitter across all cable and broadcast networks, with 1.01 million show-related Tweets from 356,770 unique authors, generating a total of 63.11 million Twitter TV impressions, according to Nielsen. Twitter activity peaked at 9:22 pm EST with 25,183 Tweets, representing 84.6 percent of all television-related Twitter activity at that time. The Walking Dead was also the #1 non-sports related program for the day in TV-related Twitter activity, with the most unique authors and total Tweets. Leading into the premiere, a "Twitter takeover" live chat with the show's cast and crew helped spike show-related tweets. With fans sending in their questions to Robert Kirkman, Scott Gimple, Gale Anne Hurd, Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan, and more, the dedicated hashtag, #askTWD, was trending world wide on Twitter. The finale also generated dozens of simultaneous trending topics including #TheWalkingDead, TheWalkingDeadMarathon, TWD, Hershel, TheWalkingDeadSeasonFinale, RickandDaryl, Michonne, and TalkingDead.
The Walking Dead finale was also a trending topic of discussion on Facebook and over a 12-hour period, from 3:00 pm - 3:00 am EST, 3.1 million people had 5.8 million interactions surrounding The Walking Dead.