It's important to note foremost that the zombie show is an adaptation of a comic book series, which is a now-common way to ensure financial insurance in the hit-or-miss industry due to the guaranteed audience base of the comic's original fans. The Walking Dead has an extreme cult-like following, which the network is now trying to fish in for their niche series. The network is also clearly trying to bank on the recent trend of the horror-fantasy genre (vampires, zombies, etc.), which itself seems to have a devoted fan base.
Before its premiere, the show reached out to fans of the comic book as well as fans of zombie culture on social media like Facebook and Twitter, giving them tons of information about their new show. I first heard about the show through such social media, through which a few of my friends had retweeted/shared links and previews provided by AMC (The Walking Dead Twitter page has almost 15,000 followers). The network also set up an elaborate promotional display for the show at the San Diego Comic-Con, an event geared toward fans. Moreover, AMC put on a zombie walk that was expanded worldwide, an event that took advantage of fan culture and invited eager fans to participate actively in hype and promotion of the material.
The show took advantage of its genre and premiered on Halloween night. The premiere gave the network its highest premiere ratings in history -- and was the highest debut for any 2010 cable series in the highly desired 18-49 demographic -- drawing in 5.3 million viewers. Clearly, genre TV is the new thing -- taking advantage of fan subcultures has proven successful for the series so far.
Despite the devoted fan base, though, I wonder whether the show has the ability to truly become/remain a hit like AMC's other shows (Mad Men, Breaking Bad). The very qualities that it's trying to exploit for success -- its niche genre and cult following -- may be the very qualities that prevent it from appealing to greater audiences.
2 comments:
The Walking Dead season finale aired last night, so I thought this would be an appropriate time to come back to the post and reflect on the success of the series in its first season.
While reading press about the show this month, I noticed that both the creators, producers, and actors in the show all voiced their surprise with the level of success the show seemed to be achieving. This surprised me, because as a fan both the Walking Dead and the AMC network, I thought they really knocked it out of the park on this one. Everything about the show fits perfectly with the new AMC - cinematic style, high quality writing and production value. In re-reading the original post, however, I think the true success of the show belongs to many different things. Listening to the fans was definitely crucial in getting the show up and running. But I'm really impressed by how high quality the show is for a "horror series" and equally impressed that it has been embraced by such a large audience. I think the effort to keep the show intelligent and cinematic has had an enormously positive effect on the show so far because it counter the usual argument/viewpoint that "horror" is low quality. That being said, as a fan of the horror genre I marveled at the show's ability to continually bring the shocks in terms of scares and gore in the series. In a way, the Walking Dead both maintains stereotypes and expectations about the genre but it also allows itself to go beyond these expectations and surprises the audience (myself included) with how original and creative it can be.
I'm sad the season was so short but I hope the success of this short run will not only bring the show back but encourage the writers and producers to keep up the good work. This series really is top notch.
-David Minick
I'm a huge fan of the Walking Dead.. so I figured I'd drop my 2 cents.
Another piece of fan involvement that the Walking Dead employed was the contest they held in which the winner could be a "walk on" zombie for the show.
The show is certainly attempting to monopolize the very small, but very passionate, zombie fan base. I was highly skeptical of the marketable nature of the show until I saw some of the interviews with the writers.
The writers pitch the show as a character piece that happens to be set within a zombie context. After watching the show, I would have to agree with this identification.
I actually think it is a highly succesfull method of advertising, to frame a show within the context of a specific niche (i.e. Sex and the City (romantic comedy), Battlestar Galactica (science fiction) and then put the emphasis of the show on the writing and the characters.
That way, the show will quickly gain fans because of the niche it appeals to, and it will keep them, due to the character development.
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