Making its debut in what will be its regular timeslot, AMC’s Better Call Saul drew a 1.6 rating among adults 18-49 and 3.4 million total viewers for its second episode Monday, according to Nielsen live-plus-same day numbers — a solid performance following its lead-in-aided premiere Sunday night.
Episode two was down 53% in demo ratings and 51% in total viewers. But Sunday’s premiere had the benefit of following The Walking Dead, cable’s most watched show and television’s highest rated among viewers 18-49. So a sharp drop-off on Monday, where AMC has not previously scheduled any of its original dramas, was expected.
Saul is currently well outpacing recent AMC freshmen such as Halt and Catch Fire, which premiered in June to 1.2 million viewers and drew fewer than 1 million for each subsequent episode. In the 10 p.m. timeslot, the 1.6 demo rating came within one tenth of a point of CBS’ NCIS: Los Angeles, tied ABC’s Castle and soundly beat NBC’s State of Affairs (1.0).
