‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Scores AMC+ Its Biggest Season Premiere Ever (EXCLUSIVE)

Selome Hailu
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“The Walking Dead: Dead City” had the biggest premiere of any season of television on AMC+ since the service launched in 2020.

The previous record-holder was predecessor series “The Walking Dead.” The iconic zombie drama had its 11th and final season released in three stretches, with the final set of eight episodes achieving the biggest debut on Oct. 2, 2022.

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These data points are reported by AMC based on one week of streaming data for each respective premiere.

“The Walking Dead: Dead City” also made waves on linear TV, where the first episode brought in 2 million viewers accounting for three days of measurement. That includes the AMC cable channel as well as a simulcast across BBCA, IFC and SundanceTV, as well as two encore screenings on AMC. Of those 2 million, 768,000 fell into the adults age 25-54 range, with 573,000 in the adults 18-49 range, per Live+3 data.

And when isolating AMC’s 9 p.m. airing, Live + 3 data indicates a total of 972,000 total viewers, with 404,000 aged 25-54 and 300,000 aged 18-49. “The Walking Dead: Dead City” has become the No. 1 most watched new cable drama of 2023. In 25-54, second place goes to another AMC title, “Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches” with 355,000 viewers aged 25-54, followed by HBO’s “The Last of Us” with 353,000. Rounding out the top 5 are Paramount Network’s “1883” with 311,000 viewers and Syfy’s “The Ark” with 280,000.

“Survive here, survive anywhere. What an incredible start for this series — the #1 season premiere in the history of AMC+ — and for the next chapter in ‘The Walking Dead’ Universe, with three new shows focused on iconic characters in intriguing and novel locations,” said Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios for AMC Networks. “Thanks to the best fans in television for joining Maggie and Negan for the beginning of this thrilling ride through the streets of Manhattan, to stars and executive producers Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and to Scott M. Gimple, Eli Jorné, Brian Bockrath and everyone who brought ‘Dead City’ very much to life. There’s so much more to come over the course of this season. Here we go!”

The series follows “The Walking Dead” characters Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) traveling into a post-apocalyptic Manhattan, long ago cut off from the mainland. The crumbling city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world full of anarchy, danger, beauty and terror. Gaius Charles and Željko Ivanek also star.

Jorné, who has been a wrote and co-executive producer on multiple seasons of “The Walking Dead,” serves as showrunner and executive producer on the series, along with Gimple, chief content officer of The Walking Dead universe, Cohan, Morgan and Bockrath.

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