‘The Walking Dead’ Premiere Scores Huge Ratings, AMC Puts Full Episode Online [Video]

The Walking Dead is back, and it’s bigger than ever. More than 10 million people tuned in to watch the season 3 premiere of the hit AMC zombie show.

According to AMC, last night’s episode was the “biggest telecast for a drama in basic cable history.” It was the most watched program last night, with the exception of Sunday Night Football, with 10.9 million viewers. That’s up by more than 50 percent from its season 2 premiere.

The show also saw a big audience for its encore showings later Sunday night. Nearly 3.5 million viewers tuned in to watch the first encore presentation at 10 pm, and another 850,000 watched the show during its midnight showing. In total, more than 15.2 million people watched The Walking Dead last night.

AMC president Charlie Collier said in a statement:

“Thank you to the fans for making ‘The Walking Dead’ such a tremendous success … We are honored and humbled that television’s largest adult audience resides on AMC. So many people on both sides of the camera worked tirelessly on this project, and I thank and congratulate each of them for their amazing contribution.”

Did you watch The Walking Dead last night? You can read The Inquisitr‘s recap of the episode here or check out the full episode of The Walking Dead (for a limited time) online below.