AMC’s The Walking Dead, currently in its eighth season, has slipped to the lowest ratings levels it has seen since its first season. That show was once a juggernaut for its network, averaging as high as a 7.4 rating back in its fifth season. And while today’s ratings numbers are not quite equivalent with those from 2010 when the show first debuted due to audience erosion, the show is definitely not the powerhouse it once was. And the continued decline, as well as the mediocre ratings that spin-off Fear the Walking Dead had for its third season, suggest that the audience has lost interest and this franchise is definitely in a downswing.

Why Are People Leaving the Show?

To be fair, The Walking Dead has been around for eight years and most TV shows that survive that long start seeing viewership declines (well, maybe not Game of Thrones). But for TWD, there is a definite point to which we can track the beginning of the “Walking Dexit”. The show had already seen fans grumbling about the quality of the writing by about its fifth season, and its sixth year was the first in which its overall ratings declined (slipping to a 6.5 average vs. Season 5’s 7.4 mean). That was the year that promised to introduce Negan (a fan-favorite villain from the comics), but it stumbled with the faux-death of a major character, then a bury-your-gays death, then padding out the story to delay bringing in the big bad (though I should say that I personally liked most of Season 6 except for the cliffhanger). Then came the final scene from that season that left fans hanging until the Season 7 premier to learn who was on the wrong end of Negan’s bat. When the show returned to resolve the cliffhanger, it delivered the second highest ratings score for TWD, but the rot set in soon thereafter.

Fans were already miffed about the cliffhanger, and then the general consensus was that The Walking Dead had gone far too dark during the first half of its seventh season (which is saying quite a lot for a show known for some petty dark storylines). The ratings started to slide quickly, and they have not recovered yet. And even though the second half of the show’s seventh season was received better by fans, the viewership numbers continued to decline and the ratings slide has hastened in the current season. The mid-season premiere a few weeks ago, which generally delivers a ratings spike, delivered the lowest ratings for that mark even though it included a well-publicized major character death. So the interest level for the show is definitely waning.

What Do the Numbers Tell Us?

Currently, The Walking Dead is averaging a 3.6 rating based on same day viewing for the 18-49 demographic through its twelfth episode. That is even with its second season, but the most recent two episodes pulled only a 2.8 score which has the show at Season 1 levels. Now, a 2.8 rating is worth more nowadays than back in 2010 because the audience has become so fractured, but TWD no longer has much of a lead on the higher rated non-sports, non-special programming on television. It was only slightly ahead of the The Big Bang Theory‘s and would have tied the premiere of American Idol a couple of weeks ago. Still, that places it among the top-rated shows on all of television, so it is not like its numbers are in the toilet. They are just no longer in the stratosphere as they were in past seasons. You can see the ratings trends above by year with the red line showing where it is currently performing.

The downward slide will likely continue for this show and I would expect that it will be below the 2.0 level by next season barring any sort of turnaround. Those are still not bad numbers, and the show is still getting top dollar for commercial spots, so don’t think that TWD is on the verge of bankrupting AMC. The network is making plenty of money and former showrunner Scott Gimple has been assigned the task of producing more spin-offs. But those might be on a smaller scale and could end up being nothing more than limited web-series based on the way things are going.

Will The Walking Dead Get Cancelled?

No, The Walking Dead will almost certainly not suffer the fate of cancellation. As mentioned above, it is still among the highest rated shows on all of television, and even when it falls from that lofty spot (which is almost certainly will), it has a halo that will keep it going for several more years. This show is still making money, though maybe not as much as it used to. And it has already been sold into syndication, so any additional seasons will be padding to that and will boost the price. So even if AMC starts going into the red on upcoming seasons (which is possible considering the extensive cast and the fx costs), they are guaranteed make their money back in the encore runs. So expect TWD to stick around for several more seasons.

At this point, I would expect the show continue to at least a tenth season, though I would say twelve seasons is probably a better bet. It could go further, but at some point AMC will decide that diminishing returns have taken their toll. In any case, I expect that the creative team will be given plenty of warning about when to start wrapping things up, and Robert Kirkman claims that he already has an eye on the show’s endpoint. It is also possible that the show could turn things around and build back some of its audience, especially considering all of the storylines from the comic it can draw from. But short of that, I believe that this one will be looking to call it quits around its twelfth season.

As for Fear the Walking Dead, that show is not in a great place at the moment. It only managed a 0.9 average for its third season based on same day viewing in the demo, and producers decided to bring fan-favorite Lennie James over from the parent show in the fourth season as an obvious attempt to bolster the ratings. I don’t know how well that will work (I plan on tuning in after having dropped that show in S2), but I do expect this one to wrap up sooner rather than later. I’m thinking that even if viewership continues to sink in the show’s fourth season, they will at least keep it around until a fifth year. But not much longer unless it has a ratings turnaround.

Johnny Jay’s Take

I personally have not watched The Walking Dead since its sixth season ended (though I have kept up with its major events through episode recaps, I’m no spoiler-phobe), because AMC made me mad by threatening legal action against fans trying to guess who Negan killed ( I guessed it correctly and !!!SPOILER WARNING:::: the No. 2 death was next up in my ranking of most likely to die). I have thought about going back and catching up, but there is so much sci fi TV on right now–some pretty damn good shows like The Expanse, The Handmaid’s Tale, Black Mirror, The Orville, and of course Game of Thrones–that I just haven’t gotten around to it. As mentioned above, I will tune into Season 4 of Fear The Walking Dead, but if it doesn’t grab me right away I’ll be tuning back out. Peak TV is delivering an overload of shows these days and TWD had its time when it led the pack. It is fading fast, though, and may not be able to find its way back to the top amidst the competition and after crapping on its fans to a degree. It was my favorite show for a while, but I have moved on and still have more than enough sci fi TV to watch.