The Most-Watched 'Mad Men' Was Not Watched by Many

The ratings are out for Mad Men's Season 5 premiere, and it's a good reminder that while many are obsessed with the show, it's still no ratings monster.

The ratings are out for Mad Men's Season 5 premiere, and it's a good reminder that while many are obsessed with the show, it's still no ratings monster. Sunday's premiere scored 3.5 million viewers, a 21 percent increase over the fourth season premiere. AMC boasted in its press release that It was the series' most-watched episode, but as Vulture editor Joe Adalian pointed out on Twitter, it just barely edged past 30 Rock's midseason episode on NBC last week, which got 3.31 million viewers according to Nielsen. Just for a sense of scale, during the week of March 12, the top-rated show was American Idol with 18.4 million viewers. Mad Men is somewhere in between AMC's other big shows. The Walking Dead's second season premier was watched by 8.1 million people; the most recent season of Breaking Bad premiered to 2.6 million total viewers.