TV Ratings: Andrew Lincoln's 'Walking Dead' Exit Gets Modest Bump

TV Ratings: Andrew Lincoln's 'Walking Dead' Exit Gets Modest Bump TV Ratings: Andrew Lincoln's 'Walking Dead' Exit G...

TV Ratings: Andrew Lincoln's 'Walking Dead' Exit Gets Modest Bump

TV Ratings: Andrew Lincoln's 'Walking Dead' Exit Gets Modest Bump

The final episode for Rick Grimes was up week to week, but not by a whole lot, while 'Talking Dead' saw bigger gains.

Andrew Lincoln's departure from The Walking Dead brought ratings gains to the show â€" just not very big ones.

The last episode for Lincoln and his character, Rick Grimes, on the AMC series improved modestly compared with the previous week. After hitting series lows earlier in the season, however, any gain is welcome.

The Nov. 4 episode, "What Comes After," delivered a 2.1 rating among adults 18-49 and 5.4 million viewers, up 6 percent in both measures over the prior week's 2.0 and 5.1 million. About half the show's total audience fell in the 18-49 demo. The episode also grew by 7 percent among adults 25-54 to 3.1 million or a 2.6 rating.

On all counts, they were the best ratings since the Oct. 7 season premiere but still at the low end of The Walking Dead's nine-season history.

After-show Talking Dead had much larger week-to-week gains as Lincoln, co-star Melissa McBride and Walking Dead creative chief Scott Gimple gathered to discuss Rick's departure and the plan to have Lincoln star in three feature-length TWD-related films for AMC.

Talking Dead drew a 1.0 in the 18-49 demographic â€" up 66 percent over 0.6 a week earlier â€" and 2.7 million viewers, a 48 percent improvement on the previous 1.82 million. Its 1.3 among adults 25-54 was a 58 percent improvement.

AMC uses live plus three-day ratings as its benchmark. The Walking Dead's Oct. 28 episode grew by a point in adults 18-49 (to 3.0) and by 2.4 million viewers (to 7.5 million) over three days; those numbers for Lincoln's final episode will be out Friday.