All You People Did This Year Was Watch The Walking Dead and Duck Dynasty

Show pitch: zombie ducks

Take even a cursory glance at the Nielsen ratings for TV’s dollar demo and two cable series will jump right out at you: AMC’s The Walking Dead and A&E’s Duck Dynasty. Of the top 50 telecasts for the year to date, The Walking Dead accounted for 16—including nine of the top 10—while Duck Dynasty boasted 22 entries. Everything else on the list was football (NFL and college), the series finale of Breaking Bad, or the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards.

In an age of extreme fragmentation, The Walking Dead has shown not just that it’s still possible for a show to have the same kind of mainstream appeal network execs remember from the good old days, but that it’s possible for that show to exist on cable.

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