Why The Walking Dead Is Ending

6. Ratings Have Dropped Massively

When any show ends, either on its own accord or from cancellation, ratings inevitably play into it.

The Walking Dead is no different, and while it was once a record-breaking behemoth, the show has declined massively with audiences over the past couple of years. Its peak (arguably creatively as well) followed Season 5, a year in which The Walking Dead pulled a massive 17 million viewers for its premiere episode, and averaged a strong 14 million for the rest of that run.

The decline set in during Season 8 though, and after 11 million viewers tuned in for the premiere, it closed the year out with just under 8 million. Things went from bad to worse, and Season 10 has dropped to as low as 3.09 million viewers, with no signs of improvement.

These figures need to be put into context, of course. Though those numbers are bad by the show's own standard, they're still decent enough when compared to AMC's other output. Fear The Walking Dead, for instance, has only averaged 1.5 million viewers for its latest season, and that's chugging along fine.

Still, the decline won't have gone unnoticed for AMC, and the cost of keeping the show around might simply outweigh the negatives of binning it, especially when...