Spotted Ratings, Sunday 10/14/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Walking Dead ratings are in, and they're legendary. The premiere posted 10.9 million viewers, which was a basic cable record for a drama series. But you almost feel like they're going easy on the opposition by just bragging about the total viewership, because the even more amazing part is how young those viewers are. 7.3 million fell in the 18-49 demo, which will wind up as a 5.8ish rating. The show added a cool 20-25% to its most recent airing, the 4.7 rating for the season two finale on March 18. And it's the biggest entertainment telecast of the 2012-13 season to date, broadcast or cable, edging the September 26 Modern Family premiere (5.5). Beating everything entertainment on broadcast was one of the only ceilings this show hadn't broken through. Now that, too, is achieved. Next stop, beating the NFL???

• The ABC Sunday downswing continued with Once Upon a Time and 666 Park Ave each dropping double digits again. The only show to actually hold up week-to-week was, amusingly enough, the one that had to face The Walking Dead head-to-head, Revenge.

• On CBS, The Mentalist aired on time for most of the country and thus bounced back to exactly its two-weeks-ago numbers.

• An NFL lead-in probably helped out game 1 of the NLCS, but it still only did four tenths better than the year-ago ALCS game 1 on Fox (which aired on a Saturday). NBC had its first real blowout of the year on Sunday Night Football, but a good Texans/Packers matchup meant it still bounced back a bit from last week. It was still the second-weakest game of the season.

FULL TABLE:

Info			Show				Timeslot		True2
	Viewers	A18-49	Last	LeLa	Rank	y2y	TLa	Ty2y
America's Funniest Home Videos	5.77	1.4	-7%	n/a	2/2	+0%	-7%	-3%	1.24
Once Upon a Time	9.45	3.0	-12%	-7%	3/3	n/a	-13%	+54%	2.46
Revenge	8.28	2.6	+0%	-12%	2/3	+8%	+2%	-5%	2.04
666 Park Ave	4.82	1.5	-12%	+0%	3/3	n/a	-9%	-23%	1.38
60 Minutes	11.58	2.0	-44%	n/a	2/3	-38%	-72%	-69%	1.75
The Amazing Race	9.11	2.6	+0%	-44%	1/3	-7%	-12%	-12%	2.09
The Good Wife	9.12	1.7	+0%	+0%	2/3	-19%	-21%	-32%	1.41
The Mentalist	10.74	2.1	+31%	+0%	1/3	-22%	+27%	+2%	2.07
Football Night in America p2	6.30	2.3	-21%	n/a	3/6	-15%	-21%	-15%	2.01
Football Night in America p3	11.83	4.5	+7%	-21%	4/6	-4%	+5%	-6%	3.53
Sunday Night Football	19.92	7.7	+7%	+7%	6/7	-13%	+8%	-13%	5.42
NFL Overrun	22.32	8.2	-7%	n/a	5/6	-2%	+447%	+1267%	5.47
The OT	11.04	4.4	n/a	n/a	1/1	-17%	+100%	+340%	2.86
NLCS	6.80	2.1	n/a	n/a	1/1	+24%	-27%	+87%	1.62

KEY (click to expand)

Viewers - The total number of viewers (age 2+, in millions) that watched the program.
A18-49 - Adults 18-49 rating. Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.
Last - A18-49 percent difference from previous episode.
LeLa - A18-49 percent difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous episode.
Rank - The A18-49 rating's rank among the show's episodes that have aired so far this season.
y2y - The show's A18-49 rating compared to its rating a year ago.
TLa - The show's A18-49 rating compared to the network's rating in the timeslot one week ago.
Ty2y - The show's A18-49 rating compared to the network's rating in the timeslot one year ago.
True2 - The second edition of True Strength, a metric that adjusts the A18-49 rating for overall viewing levels, competition and lead-in. PRELIMINARY CALCULATION. For finals, see SpotVault.

(R) - Repeat.

Much more detail on these numbers at the New Daily Spotted Ratings page.

More Spotted Ratings in the Index.