After Dish announced they’d be pulling AMC before the season premiere of Breaking Bad, many were worried what the numbers would be. But the show’s premiere hit a ratings record.
After a contract negotiation fell apart between Dish and a few networks, Breaking Bad fans who are also Dish subscribers found out they would not be watching the show’s season premiere last night.
AMC announced last Thursday they would let Dish customers stream the season premiere on their website.
“Every cable, phone and satellite company other than Dish carries AMC,” the network said, according to Deadline.com. “AMC wants its loyal Dish viewers to experience the excitement of the Breaking Bad premiere at the same time as their friends and neighbors.”
But, despite any viewers they may have lost, the season premiere still brought in a series best of 2.9 million viewers, according to E! News.
That is up 14 percent from last season’s premiere. Including the encore performance later in the night last night, 3.5 million people viewed the first episode of the last season of the show.
“Dish is said to have 14 million subscribers, though not all of them were AMC viewers, as the network, which reaches 97 million U.S. households overall, was not offered in the service’s most basic package,” said E! News.
AMC has not released the number of Dish subscribers who streamed the episode online, but their television numbers are already up from last year.
AMC learned their lesson when they released another series, Mad Men, to Netflix for streaming. The series saw an increase in television viewers after the release.
“The retro drama’s most recent season was its most-watched, something that’s been attributed to that series’ entire catalog of past episodes being available on Netflix streaming, just as Breaking Bad‘s are,” said E!
After Dish pulled AMC, they said they were looking for “stronger movie and entertainment content.” It looks like they may need to reconsider after Breaking Bad’s ratings last night, since they have 15 episodes left in the next two years.
Photo courtesy WENN.com
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