'The Walking Dead' Premieres as Top-Rated Cable Show for Sixth Straight Year

AMC's The Walking Dead returned for its 100th episode and Season Eight premiere Sunday night as the top show on television for an unprecedented sixth consecutive season, delivering 15 million total viewers, 9.3 million adults 25 to 54 and 8.8 million adults 18 to 49 in Nielsen live+3 ratings. The two-hour special episode of Talking Dead, conducted live in front of 6,000 fans at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, delivered 5 million total viewers, 2.9 million adults 25 to 54 and 2.7 million adults 18 to 49 in Nielsen live+3 ratings.

The season premiere of The Walking Dead now ranks as the top telecast this broadcast season among adults 18 to 49 and adults 25 to 54. The Walking Dead continues to significantly out-deliver top shows on fully distributed broadcast networks like The Big Bang Theory and This is Us.

"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. "Thank you to the engaged fans around the globe and to Robert Kirkman, Scott M. Gimple, Chris Hardwick and a ton of other walkers, talkers and content hawkers that make it all possible. To our friends, fans and the entire #TWDFamily, welcome to the Century Club."

In addition to the linear viewing, The Walking Dead Season Eight premiere yielded more than 1.4 million views across all AMC digital platforms and Xfinity during the premiere and subsequent three days, nearly doubling the digital audience of the season seven finale, and increasing 60 percentcompared to the premiere of the second half of season seven in April.

The Walking Dead Season Eight premiere was also a major event on social media, and continues to dominate as the most social series for the 2017/2018 season-to-date. 1.5 million people generated 2.5 million social media interactions across Facebook and Twitter on premiere day. A special livestream of the red carpet arrivals at the premiere event, carried on social platforms including Facebook Live, Twitter and Xbox generated nearly 7.2 million views across all platforms.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 pm ET on AMC. For complete coverage and insider info all season long, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter.