The Walking Dead returned to near-record high ratings in the US for the resolution of the Negan cliffhanger in October - but those highs are all a distant memory now.
In some troubling news for the zombie apocalypse series, viewership on AMC dropped sharply from The Walking Dead's second-biggest all-time audience of 17 million viewers to 11 million in four weeks.
Audience totals have dipped steadily week-to-week, with episode two 'The Well' sliding to 12.5 million and the following three episodes all hovering between 11 and 12 million viewers (via Entertainment Weekly). That's the biggest drop since 2013.
Of course, that's still a massively impressive total for a show in its seventh season and potentially is to be expected since The Walking Dead's storyline is split between Alexandria, Negan's compound, the Hilltop Colony and now The Kingdom too.
There's also the possibility that the brutal deaths of fan-favourite characters Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) and Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz) at the hands of Negan and his barbwire baseball bat could genuinely have put some fans off.
When that possibility was recently put to producer Greg Nicotero, he doubted that the gruesome violence of season premiere 'The Day Will Come When You Won't Be' would actually turn fans off for good.
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"I've been shocked at the turn of events on [Game of Thrones]," Nicotero said. "But you know what? I still love it. And I'm still committed to seeing where that story goes.
"So I think it's a knee-jerk reaction that people have, because they care about these characters. That's a tribute to every single actor on our show that has perished. It's unfortunate that people want to take a negative spin on it."
Over in the UK, broadcasting watchdog Ofcom has confirmed that it is investigating viewer complaints over the gory violence in Glenn and Abraham's death scene.
"We're investigating scenes of very strong violence shortly after the 9pm watershed, and whether these scenes were justified by the context," an Ofcom spokesperson confirmed to Digital Spy.
The Walking Dead airs on Sundays at 9/8c on AMC and on Mondays at 9pm on FOX.
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Justin is a freelance entertainment journalist and writer. He first joined Digital Spy as a freelance entertainment reporter in 2010 and also worked as a sub-editor for the brand, serving as Night News Editor from 2016 to 2024. Over more than a decade, Justin has covered numerous major entertainment events from the US and has interviewed a wide-ranging group of public figures, from comedian Steve Coogan to icons from the Star Trek universe, cast members from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and reality stars from numerous Real Housewives cities and the Below Deck franchise. Justin has also been on the ground to cover major pop culture events like the Star Wars Celebration and the D23 Expo. He's written for titles across the Hearst network, plus the likes of CBR and Us Weekly.
