Sunday Cable Ratings 3/7/21: NBA All-Star Game Dominates, The Walking Dead and Last Week Tonight Slide to Lows

Below are the top 25 programs on cable on Sunday, 3/7/21. Items of note include The Walking Dead on AMC, Last Week Tonight on HBO, and the NBA All-Star Game on TNT and TBS.

(Note: Click any show with its name in orange to be taken to its page in the TV Ratings Guide Cable Ratings Database.)

The Walking Dead to End

It's been quite a ride, but The Walking Dead's run will be coming to an end. The show, which set ratings records for AMC, will wrap with a massive 24-episode-long eleventh season. While the show was once massive, it's dropped significantly in recent seasons as it's lost star Andrew Lincoln, but it's still remained one of the top shows on cable with a 1.13 in the 18-49 rating for the tenth season (you can see full ratings below). The Walking Dead debuted in 2010 and has since aired 146 episodes. By the end of its run, it will have aired over 175 episodes. The Walking Dead stars Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, among many others.

In addition to the show's ending, it was also announced that a spinoff centering on the characters of Daryl (Reedus) and Carol (McBride) will be coming to AMC after The Walking Dead ends.

Sunday Cable Ratings 10/14/18: Camping Weak in Premiere, The Walking Dead Crumbles

Below are the Top 25 programs on cable on Sunday, 10/14/18. Items of note include the series premiere of Camping on HBO, the special Decorating Disney: Halloween Magic on Freeform, and Haunted Gingerbread Showdown on Food Network.
(Note: Click any show with its name in orange to be taken to its page in the TV Ratings Guide Cable Ratings Database.)

Show	Network	18-49 Viewers	Viewers (mil.)
The Walking Dead	AMC	1.98	4.95
MLB ALCS	TBS	1.46	5.66
90 Day Fiancé	TLC	0.81	2.66
Talking Dead	AMC	0.6	1.69
NFL Countdown	ESPN	0.59	1.40
Halloween Wars	Food	0.46	1.32
Doctor Who	BBC America	0.42	1.12
Decorating Disney: Halloween Magic	Freeform	0.4	0.93
Unexpected	TLC	0.4	1.17
Keeping Up with the Kardashians	E!	0.39	0.87
Sportscenter	ESPN	0.39	0.79
Sportscenter	ESPN	0.37	0.87
Married to Medicine	Bravo	0.35	0.98
Haunted Gingerbread Showdown	Food	0.32	0.94
Alaska: The Last Frontier	Discovery	0.31	2.22
Sportscenter	ESPN	0.3	0.61
Caribbean Life	HGTV	0.3	1.31
Hotel Transylvania	Freeform	0.3	0.68
Last Week Tonight	HBO	0.3	0.92
Shameless	Showtime	0.3	0.92
Harvey Birdman: Attorney General	Adult Swim	0.3	0.57
Inside the MLB	TBS	0.26	0.90
You	Lifetime	0.26	0.71
Sportscenter	ESPN	0.26	0.62
Beachfron Bargain Hunt	HGTV	0.25	1.38
Highlights Below the Chart:
The Last Ship	TNT	0.2	1.21
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown	CNN	0.15	0.67
Camping	HBO	0.13	0.54
The Deuce	HBO	0.12	0.55
The Circus	Showtime	0.07	0.23
Kidding	Showtime	0.05	0.17

’The Walking Dead’ Renewed For Ninth Season

Photo: AMC

AMC has renewed hit drama The Walking Dead for a ninth season. For this upcoming season, Angela Kang will replace Scott M. Gimple as showrunner. The horror drama is based on the Robert Kirkman comic book series and focuses on life after a zombie apocalypse. While the show's 8th season is down roughly 30% from last year, it remains the highest-rated scripted series on television. The series is averaging an incredible 3.79 rating in the Adults 18-49 demographic. The show's fall finale garnered a strong 3.36 rating. Check out the full ratings for The Walking Dead's latest season here.

What do you think of this news? Will you be watching season 9? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. 

Binge Report: Marvel Beats Stranger Things, No Top 3 Shows For Broadcast

The following Binge Report has been provided to us by TV Time. Analysis is our own.

You can check out the TV Time app and start tracking your favorite shows here. You can view ratings for all broadcast TV shows by clicking here. You can also view cable ratings by clicking here. 



After a month at the top, the second season of Netflix's Stranger Things is no longer the #1 show as reported by TV Time. Instead, new Netflix entry Marvel's The Punisher lands in the top spot, with an impressive 5.39 episodes per viewer. Clearly, they liked what they were seeing, as that's about 5 hours of one show. It's impressive to see that Netflix is dominating the top two spots on this list, with Stranger Things down barely more than 3% from last week in share of streams, demonstrating its longevity.

While The Walking Dead's linear ratings aren't quite what they used to be, it saw nearly a 3% increase in share of streams, putting AMC's signature show at #3 this week, up a spot from last week. Not only does this mean that The Walking Dead still has a lot of ratings power in it, it also means that none of the top three shows this week were on broadcast television.

Luckily for broadcast TV, every other show on this list was from that area of television. ABC had two shows: TGIT's anchor Grey's Anatomy, down two spots to #4, and How to Get Away with Murder, down three spots to #10. It's interesting to see Scandal missing from this list yet again. Could it actually be the least popular of the three TGIT shows? It'll also be interesting to see if it enters more towards the end of the season/series. Both Grey's and HTGAWM were down slightly in shares, but Grey's is almost a lock to make it onto next week's Binge Report and there's a chance HTGAWM stays as well, though given the two shows did not air new episodes last week could work against them.

The CW saw good news with The Flash up three spots to #5 and Arrow up three spots to #6. This could have possibly been in anticipation of the then-upcoming crossover episode. However, the strong gains for these shows led Riverdale to drop four spots to #7. It's still proven to have staying power in streaming, and only adds on to the accomplishment of stronger linear ratings this season.

CBS's sole entry on this list was its signature multi-cam sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. I say this every week, but it's really impressive how a multi-cam sitcom can make it onto a list otherwise filled by serialized dramas. The show is really firing on all cylinders, so to speak. It is down two spots to #8 this week, but that's still impressive.

FOX's Lucifer is now up a spot to #9, once again being their only show on this list, including The Gifted. Its Live + Same Day ratings are decent, nothing more and nothing less, but it's remarkable to see it doing so well on streaming week in and week out.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with my analysis? Are you surprised by this chart? Let us know in the comments below!