( EW ) -- The third season premiere of a basic cable zombie drama just delivered a bigger rating in the adult demo than any entertainment series this fall — including all broadcast shows . Sunday night 's third season premiere of `` The Walking Dead '' delivered a huge 10.9 million viewers for its first telecast . But what 's really impressive is the show 's adults 18-49 demo rating of a 5.8 . That 's stunning . The closest broadcast entertainment programs has gotten this fall to that number is ABC 's `` Modern Family '' season premiere that pulled a 5.5 ( all these are apples-to-apples next-day ratings , not including DVR ) . Football has delivered bigger numbers , but that 's sports and we 're talking entertainment programming . And AMC accomplished this rating with an extra disadvantage — not having a major distributor , Dish Network , on board due to its carriage contract dispute ( imagine how many more viewers the episode might have had with Dish on board ) . You know , aside from AMC 's other major disadvantage being a pay cable network that 's only available to a fraction of U.S. households compared to the Big Four broadcasters . 'SNL ' : Christina Applegate hits right notes . `` The Walking Dead '' was already the the most successful basic cable drama of all time in the adult demo . Last night was up more than 50 percent from season two . And if you include `` The Walking Dead 's '' encore telecast in the mix — which is a common habit for cable networks when touting their ratings — the total viewer number rises to 15.2 million . Sure , it 's two airings , but still ... that 's edging into NCIS territory . This has n't been a great fall for broadcast so far . Three of the four major networks are down compared to last fall , with NBC — aided by `` The Voice '' — rising somewhat . For a cable show to come along and prove that getting a huge rating in the valuable adult demo for a third-year show is still very possible must give pause . Broadcasters , after all , turned down `` The Walking Dead . '' As the show 's writer Robert Kirkman told EW.com : `` There definitely was resistance to dive into the genre . [ Network executives ] were like , ' I do n't know if we want dead people eating people on our network . ' That makes sense . '' 'Walking Dead ' revived ! Ken Tucker 's take . Interestingly , the biggest new drama of the fall is NBC 's `` Revolution , '' which as I 've pointed out , plays a bit like `` The Walking Dead '' without zombies ( or people eating people ) . Last night 's premiere will probably be remembered as the hour that set a record for zombie killing . How many was that ? Seventy ? Eighty ? After last season 's fan complaint of too much farm chatting and not enough zombie killing , the third season premiere 's orgy of kill-shots surely satisfied fan blood lust ( though left me wanting an Xbox controller in my hands ) . See the original article at EW.com . CLICK HERE to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly . © 2011 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved .
` ` The Walking Dead 's '' third season premiere with 10.9 million viewers . It was already the the most successful basic cable drama of all time in the cable market . Last night was up more than 50 % from season two .