The Walking Dead Hits 19.1 Million Viewers With Live+3 Ratings

AMC is having a great 2016 so far. With 5 new premieres, the network is celebrating ratings milestones left and right, including The Walking Dead, Talking Dead, Comic Book Men & more. In fact, the midseason return of The Walking Dead ended up being the most watched episode of all TV in 2016 so far.

Pulling in 19.1 million viewers overall, The Walking Dead's midseason return performed extremely well in the coveted 18-49 demographic with 12.1 million in Live +3 ratings. But that's not all. The Talking Dead returned with it's highest rated episode this season. It turns out, 7.5 million total fans stuck around with 4.6 of them being in the 18-49 subset. Considering what happened in the show that it followed and having Greg Nicotero, Carrie Underwood & Benedict Samuel, as guests it's clear that fans were eager for the show to come back.

"What a terrific start to the year for these iconic AMC series, and what a pleasure to share our biggest weekend of originals ever with such passionate and engaged fans," said Charlie Collier, president of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios. "We are proud to be working with all the remarkable creative talent driving these shows. Five premieres over one holiday weekend: Together, we walked, we talked, we called and now we can't wait to explore what's next for these unforgettable characters and unique worlds."

AMC was also touting the social media buzz that accompanied the Walking Dead's return stating that "despite competition from the NBA All-Star Game and other buzz-generating events, #TheWalkingDead was a top hashtag trend during both East and West Coast broadcasts on 2/14, conversation around the show topped 1.5 million tweets from nearly 925,000 users for an estimated 4.1 billion total Twitter impressions."

So ComicBook.com fans, are you glad the show is back? How about last night's episode? Let us know in the comments below!