The Walking Dead Mid-Season Finale Ratings Drop Big Time

This past Sunday's Season 7 mid-season finale episode of The Walking Dead picked up 10.58 million viewers, according to Deadline. That's a big number, but it's also the lowest of any Walking Dead winter finale since 2012. Additionally, it's down 24 percent from the Season 6 mid-season finale last year--that was the show's second biggest winter finale in the history of the AMC show.

The episode, "Hearts Still Beating," competed directly against Sunday Night Football on NBC. The New York Giants defeated the Dallas Cowboys 10-7 in a good game; the broadcast tallied 25.6 million viewers to become the network's best-performing edition of Sunday Night Football this year.

Go to Deadline to see a full breakdown of the latest viewership figures for The Walking Dead. For more on the 90-minute "Hearts Still Beating" episode, check out GameSpot's spoiler-filled written breakdown here and video breakdown here.

The show returns on February 12 for Season 7 Part 2.

The Walking Dead's Season 7 premiere drew more than 17 million viewers, which was close to a record for the show. A strong start was expected, as the first episode finally answered the Season 6 finale cliffhanger question of which character the evil Negan would murder with his barbed-wire baseball bat, Lucille.

An eighth season of The Walking Dead is on the way, scheduled to start in late 2017 with the show's 100th episode. Showrunner Scott Gimple is coming back for the new season.

The next Walking Dead game, Telltale's The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, debuts on December 20 with a two-part premiere.