In one of television’s most remarkable growth stories, critically-acclaimed but modestly-rated “Breaking Bad” emerged as a megahit for its final eight episodes.<\/p>\n
While long-running cable series like “Dexter” were going out with a whimper, “Breaking Bad” was going out as a pop culture phenomenon. After setting a considerable ratings record for its season 5.2 premiere, “Bad” held strong for a few episodes and then began reaching even bigger heights for its conclusory stretch.<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago, the third-to-last “Bad” set a record with 6.4 million viewers. Last week, the penultimate segment attracted 6.6 million.<\/p>\n
This week’s finale was a completely different animal, however. AMC announced Monday that the conclusion to “Breaking Bad” drew 10.3 million viewers with an impressive 5.3 adults 18-49 rating.<\/p>\n
Monstrous by all television standards, the rating bests that of every scripted television series but CBS’ comedy hit “The Big Bang Theory.”<\/p>\n
“Talking Bad,” which followed the “BB” finale, garnered an impressive 4.4 million with a 2.3 in the 18-49 demo. Prior to this season, that type of viewership level would have been unattainable for “Breaking Bad” itself, let alone for the post-episode talk show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[3,437],"tags":[671,343,892,590],"adace-sponsor":[],"yoast_head":"\n