UPDATE, 11:55 AM: Whether or not AMC decides to bring Halt And Catch Fire back for a second season will of course be influenced by how many people were actually watching the 1980s set tech drama. If Live + 3 numbers for H&CF’s August 3 freshman season finale are any indication, a lot of fans were watching after the fact. Leaping up 71% from its Live +Same Day results, Episode 10 of the Lee Pace-starrer was watched by 981,000 viewers. To make a comparison to a show that AMC did cancel, that’s much better than the 869,000 that Low Winter Sun drew in Live + 3 from its finale on October 6, 2013 – one week after its prized spot lead-in Breaking Bad had wrapped its blockbuster run and its viewership dissipated. If you’re trying to read the AMC tea leaves, worth noting that Low Winter Sun saw just an upward movement of 37% from its Live + SD result to its Live + 3.
Halt And Catch Fire saw even greater gains among Adults 25-54 with a 75% viewership rise to 482,000. Among the 18-49s, the critically acclaimed and DVR friendly series had 379,000 viewers watching its finale, a 67% rise over its Live + SD demo results of 227,000. Overall, H&CF averaged 1.23 million viewers over its first season in Live + 3 and 774,900 in Live + SD. Does that compute for another cycle?
PREVIOUS, AUG. 5 PM: No word yet from AMC if Halt And Catch Fire will be coming back for another season but the tech drama’s finale probably dampened enthusiasm. The Chris Cantwell and Chris Rogers created show about the burgeoning home computer industry in the early 1980s pulled in 574,000 viewers for its August 3 broadcast. That’s the second worst total viewership H&CF has had over its 10-episode freshman run. Only the 550,000 of the July 27 broadcast served up less of an audience for the series. What makes the finale result even harsher is that H&CF premiered with 1.2 million total viewers on June 1 – and that was after being available on AMC.com, Tumblr, TV provider VOD and TV Everywhere for two weeks before that. With the exception of one or two weeks since, the show has seen a downward trend consequently. While it performed well in DVR digital afterlife and AMC is often reluctant to pull the plug on shows after just a single season, the finale of Halt and Catch Fire was below the 630,000 viewers that Low Winter Sun had at the end of its first low-rated season. That was the first and last season for the Mark Strong-starrer, which AMC cancelled on December 6 last year, two months after its finale. In contrast, AMC’s other new series of this season Turn was renewed for a second season on June 23, just two weeks after its freshman finale had 1.61 million viewers. The Revolutionary War drama debuted on April 6 with 2.1 million total viewers.
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