‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Season 1 Finale: How Did It Rate?

The Season 1 finale of AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead has aired and fans seem to be happy with it, in general. But how did Episode 6 (entitled “The Good Man”) compare with its previous weeks ratings? Let’s have a look.

Episode 1 of Fear The Walking Dead opened to a massive 10.1 million viewers on the opening night. This was before the Live+3 was calculated (which brought Episode 1 up to 13.3 million views), meaning that original viewing number alone broke cable records.

After that first episode, the ratings consistently dropped for Fear The Walking Dead. There were a few factors that probably helped to contribute. Firstly, many fans of the flagship program Fear is based on, The Walking Dead, were expecting zombies galore from the very first episode. Considering both AMC and Fear’s creators had already stated this wasn’t going to happen, that the new series would be a “slow burn” thanks to the fact this series dealt with the zombie outbreak as it occurred rather than it did in The Walking Dead, which was bring the characters forward into the post-apocalyptic world. Added into this was the fact that Fear The Walking Dead, at times, had to go up against programming such as the Emmys. There was also a one week hiatus thrown in for good measure as well, thanks to the Labor Day weekend, and the viewership on the new show kind of forgot about once it had been off the air for a week.

However, even with all these hurdles, by the second to the last episode of Fear The Walking Dead, things were looking up again. While there was only a small difference between the Episode 4 (“Not Fade Away”) first airing viewership (6.6 million) and Episode 5 ( entitled “Cobalt” and pulling in 6.66 million views), it seemed to be enough.

Then, the Season 1 finale arrived and as Deadline points out, manages to pull in the fourth highest ranking for the season. Although, if you want to look at it another way, considering there are only six episodes in Season 1 of Fear The Walking Dead, coming fourth places the Season 1 finale in the bottom three watched episodes. As yet, the official ratings have not yet come in from TVByTheNumbers, so once the Live+3 is calculated, there might be a better placement for this Episode 6. But these early indications suggest people may still not be as invested in Fear as they are The Walking Dead. Factoring in the short first season of Fear The Walking Dead, however, might see Walking Dead fans watching the whole season in one go in the week between the season 1 finale of Fear and the Season 6 premiere of the flagship program. Considering how popular AMC’s Walking Dead marathon week normally is, this form of viewing might actually draw in more viewers for Fear’s Season 2 premiere next year.

Also, compared to the Season 1 ratings for The Walking Dead, Fear has managed to pull in nearly twice the number of viewers when the pilot episodes are compared. The Walking Dead managed 5.35 viewers for Episode 1 (entitled “Days Gone By”) according to TVByTheNumbers. Fear The Walking Dead has also done a similar thing to the mothership, with episodes dipping during the first season and then slowly rising again to finish with a steady 5.97 viewers. Since then, The Walking Dead has grown exponentially and the season 5 finale finished on a high of 15.78. So, it will be interesting to see if Fear The Walking Dead climbs in viewership season to season in the same way The Walking Dead did.

Fear The Walking Dead returns to AMC with Season 2 in 2016.

What did you think of Season 1 of Fear The Walking Dead? Was it better or worse than season 1 of the flagship program, The Walking Dead? Let us know by commenting below!

[Image credits: AMC / Justin Lubin]