TV

Olympics and zombies lead massive Sunday night for TV

There might not have been a Super Bowl this week, but Sunday was still a massive night for TV.

Ratings were led by the next-biggest sports draw — the Olympics — which saw 26.3 million viewers tune into prime-time coverage on NBC from 7:30-11 p.m.

Viewership for the evening of highlights from figure skating, women’s snowboarding, men’s alpine skiing and men’s ski jumping was on par with the first Sunday of coverage from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics (26.4 million viewers). Compared to Torino in 2006, the last Winter Olympics held in Europe, the audience was up 13 percent.

Though the Games handily beat everything else on TV Sunday night, the huge audience didn’t do much to blunt the remaining competition.

The midseason premiere of “The Walking Dead” drew a hefty 15.8 million viewers at 9 p.m., nearly besting its previous record of 16.1 million viewers for its fourth-season debut last October.

And, among the advertiser-coveted demo of adults 18-49, the “Walking Dead” zombies actually topped the Olympics head-to-head (10.4 million viewers versus 9.5 million viewers for NBC from 9 to 10 p.m.).

“The Walking Dead’s” live after-show, “Talking Dead,” did hit a series high with 5.9 million viewers at 10 p.m. for an episode featuring guests Greg Nicotero, the zombie drama’s executive producer/special effects guru, and Danai Gurira, who plays Michonne in the series.

Beatlemania also proved resilient, with CBS averaging nearly 14 million viewers for its two-and-a-half-hour special “The Beatles: The Night That Changed America – A Grammy Salute.”

The evening, which marked the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ first performance in the U.S., live on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” included a reunion performance with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr as well as covers of the Fab Four’s hits by artists like Maroon 5, Katy Perry and Stevie Wonder.

“Downton Abbey,” which was one of the few shows to face off against the Super Bowl on Feb. 2, saw its audience fall just 1 percent from the prior week, to 6.7 million viewers.

After taking a week off for the Super Bowl, HBO’s “True Detective” returned with its most-watched episode since its premiere, drawing nearly 2 million viewers at 9 p.m. (up 3 percent from its last new episode) and 3.1 million total viewers .