Cablemetrics: The Walking Dead, Outlander, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mr. Robot

These numbers are current through Monday, October 23.

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Walking Dead (5.03) returned for what looks like another year as the biggest entertainment program on TV. It'll take a few weeks to really get a gauge on how fast this show is bleeding, because it was never going to to live up to the show's most impressive performance ever, the 8.36 at the start of last fall. While it was actually pretty close to the Plus of its 2014 and 2015 season premieres, it was also just the second Dead premiere to come in lower than the previous season finale.
  

• It was a series-high night for Outlander (0.41) on Starz, after the series took a week off last Sunday and returned with an extended episode. It's a new high point in the show's rapid raw growth season, though perhaps it's a bit less amazing than it appears because of the move from Saturday to Sunday.

• Haven't done one of these in a month, so to recap a few other cable goings-on this fall: HBO's latest season of Curb Your Enthusiasm has done pretty decent business, settling right around the 0.4 mark in the last three weeks after opening on a 0.52. That's roughly a tenth better than its lead-in The Deuce and lead-out Vice Principals, though I have no idea how it compares with what Curb used to do back in the day.

• As for The Deuce, it showed some potential when it grew on the last two Sundays of the summer, but it's been stuck right at a 0.27 since the start of the TV regular season. It's not a breakout, but it's clearly doing better than HBO duds of the past like Luck and Vinyl which had their renewals rescinded.

• And USA's Mr. Robot has gone 0.30 -> 0.23 in the first two weeks of season three, which were down 30% and 23% respectively from last year. I actually think this rate of decline could be worse, since this show was such a media darling and much of that seems to be gone. But the 0.23 still puts it well behind all of the channel's staples from the summer.

•  TNT is also offering up a limited menu in the fall, with the sophomore Good Behavior (0.19 -> 0.15) off to a quiet but relatively healthy start on Sundays. Ray Donovan looks like it will end up with about the same Plus as last year, just like fellow Showtime staples Shameless and Homeland in their most recent seasons. And FX's American Horror Story keeps plugging away with 25-30% year-to-year declines, dipping below the 1.00 mark for the first time this season last Tuesday (0.97). It'll mark a sizable drop from last year's zenith, but probably end up at about the same Plus as seasons three and four.

FULL TABLE:

Show		Episode			Season
Name	Net	Ep	A18-49	Last	Seas	Avg	y2y	Proj	ProjPlus	Skew	Male
The Walking Dead	AMC	1	5.03		8	5.03	-40%	3.38	337	56%	51%
Talking Dead Fall	AMC	2	1.68	-19%	4	1.68	-44%	1.19	118	53%	48%
American Horror Story	FX	7	0.97	-7%	7	1.22	-28%	1.13	113	63%	42%
South Park	COME	5	0.54	-18%	11	0.72	-31%	0.70	70	73%	66%
Queen Sugar	OWN	12	0.30	-9%	2	0.44	-12%	0.44	44	36%	29%
Curb Your Enthusiasm	HBO	4	0.38	-5%	9	0.42		0.39	39	44%	61%
Broad City	COME	5	0.28	-3%	4	0.36	-6%	0.34	34	70%	61%
Outlander	STAR	6	0.41	+21%	3	0.34	+24%	0.27	27	27%	32%
Vice Principals	HBO	6	0.28	-7%	2	0.29	-28%	0.27	26	53%	60%
The Deuce	HBO	7	0.27	+4%	2	0.27		0.27	27	38%	58%
Mr. Robot	USA	2	0.23	-23%	3	0.26	-27%	0.22	22	56%	55%
Ray Donovan	SHOW	11	0.27	+8%	5	0.26	-17%	0.26	26	29%	54%
Z Nation	SYFY	4	0.21	+24%	4	0.17	-38%	0.16	16	38%	50%
Good Behavior	TNT	2	0.15	-21%	2	0.17	-11%	0.17	17	35%
Better Things	FX	6	0.16	-11%	2	0.16	-17%	0.16	16	43%	46%
Channel Zero	SYFY	5	0.14	-22%	2	0.14	-27%	0.14	14	44%
Van Helsing	SYFY	3	0.13	0%	2	0.14	-28%	0.11	11	37%
You're the Worst	FXX	8	0.14	+40%	4	0.12	+2%	0.11	10	58%	50%
The Shannara Chronicles	SPIK	2	0.10	0%	2	0.10	-79%	0.08	8	49%

The Cablemetrics table can be sorted by clicking any of the categories at the top (and a second click will sort in the other direction.) After having sorted by a category, you can hold SHIFT and click another category to sort by the second category within the first.