Breaking Bad Finale Breaks Ratings Records

Most watched basic cable series finale ever with 10.3M viewers
By Ruth Brown,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 30, 2013 2:44 PM CDT
Breaking Bad Finale Breaks Ratings Records
Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston, next to the Winnebago he uses as a mobile meth lab in the pilot episode of "Breaking Bad."   (AP Photo/AMC, Doug Hyun)

Most TV shows tend to lose viewers as they wind down into their final seasons, but Breaking Bad was never most TV shows. It just kept getting more popular. Last night's acclaimed series finale pulled in a massive 10.3 million viewers, smashing the show's own record of 6.6 million viewers for last's week's penultimate episode. Compare that with the show's season 4 finale, EW notes, which attracted 1.9 million viewers ... and was considered a success at the time. That's an increase of 442%.

But the finale didn't just break the show's own records: it was the most watched basic cable series finale ever, USA Today reports. The episode was torrented by more than 500,000 people in 12 hours, reports TorrentFreak, making it the most pirated episode of the series and a contender for the most pirated show of the year. The episode also generated 5.5 million "interactions" on Twitter, and 1.24 million tweets, USA Today reports. (More Breaking Bad stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X