The Bible beats The Walking Dead in epic ratings battle

The latest instalment of The Bible on History narrowly edged out The Walking Dead on AMC as both once again recorded over ten million viewers and were the top shows across US television on the night.

Both series have set a new benchmark for cable TV ratings in the US, regularly beating out competition from the broadcast networks.

Episode three of Mark Burnett-produced The Bible recorded 10.872 million viewers while The Walking Dead garnered 10.843 million.

Zombie series The Walking Dead won in the all-important 18-to-49 demographic delivering 7.01 million viewers compared with the older-skewing The Bible’s 3.49 million.

The Walking Dead’s numbers although huge are down on previous week when it garnered 11.5 million viewers. The Bible maintained week-on-week audience share after slipping from its 13.1 million viewer opening.

History says that across all 18 transmissions of the show so far, including reruns on History and sister net Lifetime, The Bible has garnered 68 million cumulative viewers. Two episodes of the miniseries are left, with it culminating on Easter Sunday.

Having pushed into drama programming, History runs another of its scripted series straight after The Bible with Vikings in a 10pm slot. It has benefitted from The Bible run-in and was the third most-popular show on cable on Sunday, registering 4.8 million viewers and 1.9 million in the 19-to-49s.

The Walking Dead spin-off talk show The Talking Dead won 3.7 million viewers, up on the 3.4 million it recorded a week earlier but it was pushed into sixth place in the day’s cable rankings by the strong performance of sitcoms Shake it Up and Austin & Ally on Disney.