THE WALKING DEAD Producer Attempts To Explain Falling Ratings As We Wait For News On Season 9 Renewal

THE WALKING DEAD Producer Attempts To Explain Falling Ratings As We Wait For News On Season 9 Renewal

Ratings for The Walking Dead have been falling for a while now and with still no news on a season nine renewal, one of the show's producers has now attempted to defend the show's current performance.

News
By JoshWilding - Jan 03, 2018 02:01 AM EST
Filed Under: The Walking Dead
Source: Variety
While Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan has injected some much-needed life into The Walking Dead, the villain has too often been ignored in favour of dull standalone episodes or repetitive shots of the survivors kneeling by cars and firing assault rifles. As a result of this apparent dip in the show's quality of storytelling, ratings have been falling and the series constantly seems to hit new viewing lows.

Season eight of The Walking Dead saw it sink to a six-year low but Skybound Entertainment CEO and executive producer David Alpert has weighed in on why he believes this decrease is no big deal.

"I don’t think in any way the brand has lost its relevance in general," he explains. "I think we’re just seeing a decline in urgency across all media to consume something at a specific time." While there's some truth to that, it still doesn't explain this severity of the show's dip in viewership but it appears as if many viewers now choose to pirate The Walking Dead as opposed to paying to watch it live.

It's also worth noting that the show still hasn't been renewed for a ninth season. In contrast, season eight was announced almost immediately after the season seven premiere so the network may be mulling over its options and some big behind the scenes changes too. What do you guys think? 
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Scarilian
Scarilian - 1/3/2018, 2:30 AM
Ratings are falling because;

• Plotlines are being stretched out
• Zombies appear seemingly randomly and ignore basic logic such as making no sound at certain times in order to surprise people
• Characters/actors people were interested in get killed off in dumb ways because they get fired
• The story has no clear motivation or goals and those working with it have no plans for it to end and have lost understanding of what 'The Walking Dead' actually means.
ComicBookPsycho
ComicBookPsycho - 1/3/2018, 4:45 AM
@Scarilian - Or simply because alot more people just torrent it now, I mean it was the second most torrented show behind GOT.
Scarilian
Scarilian - 1/3/2018, 5:19 AM
@ComicBookPsycho -

True, though i also felt the most recent season of GoT had a quality drop - most notably with Tyrion who was shown as being a lot smarter than he was portrayed in the recent season.
ThouBear8
ThouBear8 - 1/3/2018, 7:05 AM
@Scarilian - all of those are true no doubt. I'd argue its biggest issue is that Scott Gimple is in charge, & his head is so far up his own ass that he tries to make things super "artistic", only he's not creative enough to actually do so. More importantly, he cares only about keeping the show going as long as possible rather than delivering the best show possible. Basically, they should've replaced Gimple a year or 2 ago & they should've planned to end by season 10. I'm not sure any show needs more than 10 seasons, but they're sure trying to get more.
TheOtherOn
TheOtherOn - 1/3/2018, 8:59 AM
@Scarilian - I never bothered with this show when it started. You can do so much with "Zombies taking over the world and remaining humans are trying to survive" idea. And 9 years later, I am glad I skipped this stretchy pathetic excuse of a TV show.
Saga
Saga - 1/3/2018, 2:32 AM
Stopped watching after season 4. Insanely boring, the comic is way better
DoctorCranium
DoctorCranium - 1/3/2018, 8:28 AM
@Saga - It truly is. Now with [spoiler] getting bitten on the torso but still being alive and a major part of the current storyline in the comics AND how badly they've mishandled Eugene, I'm having trouble justifying watching this anymore.
ForDarkseid
ForDarkseid - 1/3/2018, 2:34 AM
Season 9 should be the last. Hype it up as the final season, go all out and end the show with a blast. Also think the spin off show was a bad idea from the get go as it probably helped with fatigue.
Scarilian
Scarilian - 1/3/2018, 2:38 AM
@ForDarkseid -

Part of me would have hoped they would end it mirroring one of the early episodes.

Rick is trapped surrounded by zombies in a scenario he cannot escape from and just gives up - it would help emphasize the idea that they are the 'walking dead' and they have no chance of saving humanity. That he has been desperately trying to fight a fate he's known he would have since the start, but he's been deluding himself into thinking they could still have a normal life (Old Man Rick vision/dream)
dracula
dracula - 1/3/2018, 2:42 AM
@ForDarkseid - yeah just finish the Neagan story
tripttwe
tripttwe - 1/3/2018, 2:44 AM
There's absolutely too much time being wasted on this show. They have scenes that go on for thirty seconds to a minute, with no dialog, doing things that everyday people do. These characters are not that great, and this shoot out with no major consequences is reminiscent of G.I. Joe episodes. My two cents...
Luminus
Luminus - 1/3/2018, 5:17 AM
@tripttwe - "this shoot out with no major consequences "

What in the world are you talking about? The entire unit of fighters from the Kingdom ended up dead, and the King was seriously wounded. If they had killed major characters, you'd just complain about that, too, as people did when Glenn was killed and now with Carl.
tripttwe
tripttwe - 1/4/2018, 5:22 PM
@Luminus - I understand what you're saying, and I respect your opinion, but I honestly didn't care about any fighter from the Kingdom. My two cents...
Luminus
Luminus - 1/4/2018, 8:47 PM
@tripttwe - Well, that's why I both love and dread to watch 24. That was a rough 9 Seasons of Jack.
tripttwe
tripttwe - 1/7/2018, 5:50 PM
@Luminus - ooookay.
Luminus
Luminus - 1/7/2018, 10:27 PM
@tripttwe - You've never seen 24? Get on it! It's touch watching characters you love and are rooting for get killed off so violently.
Typhoon20
Typhoon20 - 1/3/2018, 3:48 AM
Less is more when it comes to zombies. A lesson these idiots failed to comprehend and think showing silly extreme zombie makeup and gore is the way for the viewer to get attached to the concept of it. And then you have these actors, actresses no one cares about and then the dialogue. So cringey.
CorndogBurglar
CorndogBurglar - 1/3/2018, 3:49 AM
If what he is saying were true then wouldn't ALL shows be dropping in the ratings?

"we’re just seeing a decline in urgency across all media to consume something at a specific time."

Doesn't this imply that TWD isn't doing anything tonmakenthe ratings drop themselves, but because of people being able to record shows through DVR or watch On Demand that they just don't have the need to watch the shows at the time they air?

Seems to me like everything would dropping in the ratings if that were the case.
slickrickdesigns
slickrickdesigns - 1/3/2018, 4:30 AM
How about explaining why they killed off Carl?
Asturgis
Asturgis - 1/3/2018, 5:21 AM
@slickrickdesigns - Around the same time, in the comic they also killed off a MAJOR character (my favorite), and even if their death came out of nowhere, it was nicely and emotionally handled, but it lasted way too long. Literally half of the last TP is that character's death, so the comic is also guilty of slowing things down to a crawl.

Some decisions are just bad, no matter how you look at them. The writer might think it's great shit, but chances are he's trapped and feels he has to do something shocking, or major, because it hasn't happened in a while and people expect it. We don't read TWD to see people we like die, we actually read it to see how they survive. Cutting off Rick's hand was absurd, killing some of the characters also was.
OptionFour
OptionFour - 1/3/2018, 4:42 AM
The show is just kind of meandering along, going nowhere. Its become increasingly obvious that they have no end-game in mind, and the plot has taken up the pacing and tenor of a child telling a story by a campfire: "And then what if THIS happened! And then THIS happened! And then . . . " without meaningful development or any connection between events.

They should probably just wrap it up if they've really got no ideas left and nowhere to go.
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