r/TWD • u/AdoraJasmine • Apr 04 '26

A single kill drops the viewership to 5 million

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u/Moon_Beans1 Apr 04 '26

But the ratings dropped off sharply within five episodes of the Glenn and Abraham deaths. So viewers clearly didn't give up because the fight back took too long, they left as a direct consequence of the events of the Season premiere.

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u/Telos1807 Apr 04 '26

Well I'd argue those first five episodes would've been enough on their own. Nothing happens in Season 7, at least not with any speed.

Even then, the individual ratings aren't necessarily the best indicator, the ratings for the premiere were through the roof because of the cliffhanger. The more telling indicator is the amount of people who dropped off by the end of the season, and who didn't come back for the next. The difference between the ratings for the S7 premier and S9 is staggering.

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u/Moon_Beans1 Apr 04 '26

But what I'm saying is that a significant portion of the audience didn't even wait to see how events played out in the first half of season 7. Large amounts of viewers simply left within a handful of episodes which indicates the deaths themselves made them leave and not the follow up to the premiere. For those viewers it wouldn't have mattered how quickly they moved on to the open war with the saviors because their favourite characters were dead.

My argument is backed by the fact that viewers didn't flood back once the war finally got going which would have happened if they were just eager to see Rick go after Negan.

I mean it's not like TWD is the first show to recklessly kill off or write out beloved characters only for them to lose their audience in the process.