• by Wayne Friedman , October 22, 2012

AMC's "The Walking Dead" on Sunday night has found a fast-moving traditional TV audience and a sprinting social media crowd.

Social media researcher Trendrr.TV says "Dead" pulled in a whopping 725,220 social messages, easily more than messages than the other top 15 cable programs combined.

Among the traditional TV viewing metrics, Nielsen preliminary results says the big drama has pulled in another heavyweight-looking 9.5 million viewers -- a dip from the 10.9 million viewers of its season premiere a week ago. That season opening show was the best result ever for a original episode of basic cable TV network drama.

Other near-competing TV shows on the night pulled in around 100,000 or more social messages. This included Fox's Major League Baseball playoff, San Francisco Giants-St.Louis Cardinals (124,601); Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants," (119,608); ABC's "Once Upon A Time," (104,872); Fox' "NFL Football: Redskins at Giants" (92,146); and NBC's "Sunday Night Football: Steelers at Bengals" (90,305).

For its part, NBC -- in observing the traditional TV viewing metrics, with its big "Sunday Night Football" in tow -- continued to grabbed another big win getting a Nielsen 4.8 rating/12 share among 18-49 viewers and 12.8 million average overall viewers. CBS had a 3.8/10 number among 18-49ers and 14.5 million viewers, while ABC saw 2.3/6 and 7.3 million; Fox 1.6/4 and 5.6 million; and Univision, 1.1/3 and 2.8 million.

Top Sunday viewing shows: NBC's "Sunday Night Football" was at a 6.0/15 versus a 15.6 million a week ago -- this was down versus a 6.9/16 and 17.7 million number of a week ago. Both of ABC's Sunday night dramas were up -- "Once Upon a Time" at 3.3/8 (3.0 a week ago), 9.7 million viewer; and "Revenge" with 2.8/6 (a 2.6 a week before) and 8.65 million viewers.

CBS' "The Good Wife" also showed picked up in the key demo, at a 1.9/5 (versus a 1.7 rating the last time around) and nearly 10 million viewers. Earlier in the evening, in 7 p.m. hour, CBS' overrun of its NFL afternoon football game pulled in a 7.6 rating/22 share 18-49 numbers and 23.77 million viewers.

advertisement

advertisement