After Strong Debut, Walking Dead Viewership Drops to Lowest in Years

The Season 7 premiere of AMC's The Walking Dead drew more than 17 million viewers, which came close to matching an all-time high for the show. Since then, however, viewership has dropped every week, with the latest chapter, Sunday's Episode 5, seeing the worst viewership since 2013's Season 3.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the viewership dropoff was followed this downward trend: Episode 2 (12.5 million), Episode 3 (11.7 million), Episode 4 (11.4 million), and Episode 5 (11 million).

A strong start was expected for the season premiere, as the episode finally answered the Season 6 finale cliffhanger question of which character the evil Negan would murder with his barbed-wire baseball bat, Lucille.

While The Walking Dead's ratings may be on the decline this season, it's important to note that the show is still a ratings juggernaut. Episode 5 had an adult demo rating of 5.1, which was bigger than any other cable TV show that day.

An eighth season of The Walking Dead is on the way, scheduled to start in late 2017 with the show's 100th episode. Showrunner Scott Gimple is coming back for the new season.

Earlier this month, Robert Kirkman, who created the Walking Dead comics on which the show is based, revealed that neither executives at AMC nor the show's producers have any input in the direction that the comic book takes, even though it could affect the series

"So, they're kind of a hundred percent in the dark, which I guess is pretty remarkable, and I would probably say it's a testament to the trust that AMC has in me," he said. "I mean, I guess to a certain extent, at this point, the comic book is kind of a workshop of future seasons of the show, and it's fun to think that I can just completely torpedo the story if I wanted to."

As for Telltale's Walking Dead game series, the developer announced this week that Season 3, A New Frontier, will premiere on December 20.