The first half of season has the biggest in-season drop in the history of "The Walking Dead." After garnering 17 Million total viewers and an 8.4 rating in the demo for the season seven premiere in October, "The Walking Dead" sees a decline in ratings. People are fleeing from and not flocking to the Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) show. By the midseason finale in December, the demo ratings have declined by 40% from the season premiere's ratings. This is a 27% decline from season six’s midseason finale demo ratings. This decline has caused AMC Network to fall short on delivering their guarantees to advertisers.
'The Walking Dead' rising
Before the season seven premiere, AMC’s promo focused on Negan. Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and other potential victims are not featured. In December, AMC shifts focus and create the RISE UP campaign. This ad campaign focuses on Rick Grimes rising up and taking on Negan. In fact, Negan is absent from most of the promo for the second half of the season.
Could Negan’s disappearance from the promo be a factor as to why the ratings for the second half of season seven have improved? On February 12, "The Walking Dead" returns with ratings of 12 million total viewers and 5.7 demo rating.
The first two episodes heavily feature Rick, Michonne (Danai Gurira) and the family trying to gain allies for the fight against Negan.
The midseason premiere only features Negan’s voice over the radio. After a first half saturated with Negan, viewers may have enjoyed the reprieve. The ratings for the follow-up episode “New Best Friends” has excellent retention with 11.08 million total viewers and 5.3 demo rating.
The return of Negan
This Sunday’s episode, “Hostiles and Calamities,” marks the return of the bottle episode.
It is the first time the audience has seen Negan since the midseason finale. In “Hostiles and Calamities,” we catch up with Eugene (Josh McDermitt). In the midseason finale, Negan discovers that Eugene can make bullets, so he captures Eugene and takes him to the Sanctuary. From the episodes' promo, we see Eugene cowering in front of Negan one minute and entertaining Negan's wives the next minute.
What brings on this change?
The official synopsis for Sunday's episode says, "An Alexandrian discovers they must navigate the mysterious, confusing and terrifying world within the Saviors' compound." With spoilers about a possible traitor on “The Walking Dead,” could "Hostiles and Calamities" give a glimpse as to who the traitor is?
Could Eugene become a turncoat and align himself with the man who killed Abe, Eugene’s apocalypse protector and a friend or will Dwight (Austin Amelio) finally leave Negan and run to Rick and Alexandria?
Tune in Sunday to find out who’s the traitor.
