The zombie excitement keeps growing at AMC. The Walking Dead season 3 premiere Sunday night was watched by 10.9 million viewers, making it the highest-rated episode ever. If you factor it several encores that aired Sunday night as well, the total was over 15 million.

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The previous high for The Walking Dead was the season 2 premiere which had just under 9 million viewers. This two million viewer jump shows that zombie fever has not faded.

The huge numbers also helped AMC beat all scripted programming on the major networks. New episodes of The Amazing Race, The Good Wife, Once Upon a Time and Revenge all earned under 10 million viewers, while CBS' hit drama The Mentalist was at 10.6 million.

Not even stiff competition from football and baseball could stop The Walking Dead's domination. The numbers may also be up thanks to a weekend-long marathon of the entire series to help boost excitement.

Here's a quick look at the history of the show's ratings to see just how high it has climbed.

The Walking Dead Season 1 Premiere: 5.35 million
The Walking Dead Season 2 Premiere: 7.26 million
The Walking Dead Season 2.5 Premiere: 8.1 million
The Walking Dead Season 3 Premiere: 10.9 million

The Walking Dead season 3 premiere jumped forward several months in time as Rick and his group took over a prison and Herschel got bitten by a Walker (and promptly had his leg hacked off). It also marked the arrival of fan favorite character Michonne.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9pm on AMC.


(Image courtesy of AMC)