‘The Walking Dead’ Zombies Still Have Legs, But Miss a Step As ‘The Good Doctor’ Takes a Bite — Ratings Watch

“The Walking Dead” remains far, far away from the ratings graveyard. The show’s Season 8 opener, which also doubled as its landmark 100th episode, was the week’s top-rated program among adults 18-49, even leapfrogging over NFL football.

But without the benefit of a major cliffhanger like last season, AMC’s “Dead” plunged from last year’s opener (when [it’s been a year, but spoiler alert nonetheless] Glenn and Abraham were brutally murdered on screen). With three days of DVR and video-on-demand usage included, “The Walking Dead” posted a 6.8 rating in live+3 ratings among adults 18-49 this past Sunday (down from 10.8 last year) and attracted 15 million viewers (down from 20.8 million viewers).

In live viewership, “The Walking Dead” dipped to its lowest-rated premiere since Season 3. The show’s erosion allowed a very different kind of drama to surpass it in total viewers: ABC’s surging “The Good Doctor,” which jumped 52 percent in viewers (from 10.6 million to 16.1 million) after three days of time-shifted playback, compared to “The Walking Dead’s” 31 percent (11.5 million to 15 million). That made “The Good Doctor” the week’s most-watched drama, and just 400,000 viewers behind the week’s most-watched scripted series, CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory.”

The dip also impacted companion series “Talking Dead,” which averaged a 2.4 rating in adults 18-49 (vs. 4.2 last year) and 5.7 million viewers (compared to 8.7 million in 2016).

On the bright side, “The Walking Dead” season 8 premiere represented the sixth year in a row that the show opened at No. 1, the network noted. According to AMC, an additional 1.4 million views of the premiere were viewd across all AMC digital platforms and Xfinity within the first three days of air.

“There are only a precious few television programs that can deliver urgent viewing and large, diverse audiences. One hundred episodes after Rick first met Morgan, ‘The Walking Dead’ continues to do both.” said Charlie Collier, president of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios.

Meanwhile, the fourth week of the new season (Oct. 16-22) saw major league football, baseball and basketball all make it into the top 25 (college football as well). And in Xfinity’s VOD ranker, The CW’s “Riverdale” creeped on to the list for the first time.

Here are this week’s rankers:

Adults 18-49 ranker, week ending Oct. 22, 2017:

Read More:LAST WEEK’S RATINGS: ‘The Good Doctor’ Is Now Bigger Than ‘NCIS’ and ‘This Is Us,’ By a Hair — Ratings Watch

Total viewers ranker, week ending Oct. 22, 2017:

Here is this week’s Xfinity On Demand ranker:

Top 20 TV Series, Oct. 16-22, 2017:

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'The Good Doctor' Is Now Bigger Than 'NCIS' and 'This Is Us,' By a Hair -- Ratings Watch