Better Call Saul’s finale was ratings bonanza for AMC

Your honor, if it pleases the court, AMC’s client was a ratings dynamo

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  August 22, 2022 | 11:18pm
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Better Call Saul’s finale was ratings bonanza for AMC
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Bob Odenkirk Photo: Greg Lewis (AMC/Sony Pictures Television)

With the end of Better Call Saul, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould can stop terrorizing Albuquerque with their overt propaganda for lawlessness and depravity. But at the end of the day, Saul never incited the same passionate, loud, and obnoxious fandom as Breaking Bad, so maybe there’s less to worry about. It didn’t penetrate the Internet of the early 2010s with stupid memes of a guy in a porkpie hat declaring that he was the one who knocks. It didn’t incite sexist fan campaigns that the show’s creator still feels bad about. In short, there probably won’t be a statue of the infamous ambulance in front of the courthouse.

For all the motormouthed arguments made by Bob Odenkirk over the years, Saul never cracked the mainstream in the same way as its predecessor. What could? At the time of its finale, Breaking Bad was fending off overblown think-pieces declaring it the greatest television show ever made. Breaking Bad’s silly little spin-off about the show’s huckster lawyer could never live up to those expectations, even as it quietly came close exceeding them.

Nevertheless, the show’s ratings were all good, man.

According to AMC, the finale of Better Call Saul was the most-watched episode of the season, with more than 1.8 million viewers tuning in to see ‌Jimmy McGill’s masterful final hour on the air. It was the most viewers the show received since the season three finale, positing the theory that, perhaps, Michael McKean was the show’s Pied Piper, blowing his flute and leading fans to AMC. Better Call Saul also ranked third in overall ratings in cable shows for adults, behind Yellowstone and Walking Dead.

The show also did well on streaming, where it “has been the #1 acquisition driver in the history of AMC+,” writes AMC publicity. Of course, AMC+’s history spans generations, eons even, having launched a whole two years ago. Most importantly, though, more than four times as many viewers watched the finale on AMC+ the day it aired than watched the season premiere in the spring. The network also acknowledges that, while Saul is very popular, it failed to catch up to The Walking Dead, a show that, like its titular characters, will never die.

All-in-all, this is good news for anyone that thinks of AMC as one of the last bastions of good television for adults on basic cable. If AMC or FX pull an HBO, we’ll be SOL.

 
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