THE SKED: Viewers Check In to “Bates Motel” and Sunday Cable Ratings

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BATES MOTEL had a very solid start on A&E last night, with a total viewership in its initial airing of 3 million, a number that rose healthily to 4.6 million with the night’s rerun included.  It also skewed fairly young for a show that takes its inspiration from a 52-year old movie, with more than half its viewers under 50:  a 1.2 demo rating for the initial broadcast, rising to 1.7 for the night.  That’s more viewers, and the same number of 18-49s, than were watching Deception on NBC in the 10PM hour.

On Sunday night, AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD was off slightly (down 0.2) from the previous week, but its 5.5 still almost doubled the nearest competition in 18-49s.  That competition was its opposite THE BIBLE on History Channel (now featuring President Obama as Satan!), which rose 0.3 to 2.8 (and narrowly topped Walking Dead in total viewers because its audience skews so old).  The results were similar at 10PM, where TALKING DEAD won in 18-49s (up slightly to 1.9), beating History’s THE VIKINGS (up 0.2 to 1.5), but Vikings surged ahead in the older total audience measurement.

As for the less blockbuster-y shows, on Lifetime THE CLIENT LIST was up 0.1 to 1.0, but ARMY WIVES, with the “event” episode of a major character’s death over, fell 0.1 to 0.7.  (In the same way, last night’s post-JR funeral episode of DALLAS slipped 0.1 to 0.8 on TNT.)  On Showtime, SHAMELESS held even at 0.8,