Congratulations to The Walking Dead who destroyed, annihilated, slaughtered – help yourself to continue – previous cable viewership records with its season 2 premiere on Sunday, October 16 on AMC. SciFi Mafia was watching, how about you? And the staggering – see what we did there? – numbers continue as the rollout slowly drags itself out across the globe.

Deadline reports the following:

4.8 million viewers in Adults 18-49
4.2 million viewers in Adults 25-54
7.3 million total viewers for premiere
11 million total viewers for the night

The 18-49 and 25-54 tallies broke basic cable’s previous records posted by the premiere of USA Network’s The Dead Zone in June 2002 (4.0 million in 18-49, 4.1 million in 25-54). Compared with Walking Dead‘s highly rated series premiere last year (5.2 million total viewers, 3.5 million in 18-49), the Season 2 opener was up a whopping 38% in total viewers, 36% in 18-49 and 35% in 25-54. With the 9 PM airing and the 10:30 PM and 12:30 AM encores, the Walking Dead premiere drew a total of 11 million viewers. “The Walking Dead is one of those rare television programs that reaches both a core genre fan as well as broad audiences simply looking for a great, character-based story,” said AMC president Charlie Collier. “That The Walking Dead is now the most-watched drama in the history of basic cable is staggering, just like our zombies.” UPDATE: AMC’s talk show Talking Dead got off to a solid start at midnight, following the first rerun of the Walking Dead premiere. It averaged 1.2 million total viewers, 795,000 adults 18-49 and 735,000 adults 25-54.

As for those international dates and numbers, here’s what we heard from Fox International Channels:

FOX INTERNATIONAL CHANNELS (FIC) KICKS OFF THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 2 GLOBAL ROLLOUT; FIRST SHATTERED RECORDS ARRIVE FROM SPAIN

SPAIN LEADS THE GLOBAL PREMIERE, WHICH BEGAN SUNDAY, THE 16TH AND ENDS ON SATURDAY, THE 22ND

Following the Stellar Performance in the US on AMC, The Walking Dead’s Worldwide Premiere is following a similar trend

Los Angeles, CA – Oct 18, 2011 – Just a few hours after AMC’s record-breaking premiere Sunday, October 16th, Fox International Channels (FIC) extended the streak by kicking off The Walking Dead’s second season global rollout to its own record numbers.

Last night FIC’s first key market, Spain, got off to an impressive strong start, delivering the best ratings results for 18-49 in FOX Spain’s ten year life span and the second best debut ever in the history of the channel. The launch was the first ever hybrid multi-platform launch ever on Spanish television.

Key Kantar Highlights in Spain for the season two premiere are as follows:

·432,000 Total Viewers, 316,000 Viewers Adults 18-49

·411% increase respectively over season one premiere

·Over 470% increase in average PT for the month of October

“The Walking Dead has gone from phenomenon to pandemic,” said Hernan Lopez, CEO of FIC. “The numbers that came in from Spain this morning, combined with the astounding launch results in the US, tell us that the virus is now out of control.”

“The response to The Walking Dead has been remarkable. It’s a universal story of survival and we are so pleased to partner with Fox International Channels to bring it to life on screen,” said Charlie Collier, AMC‘s president. “And now to learn that the series is the most watched drama series against key demos in countries around the globe?  It just underscores that the zombie infiltration is global.”

The show will launch globally this week on all Fox International Channels worldwide before the second episode airs in the US. The second season of The Walking Dead will reach FOX audiences in 122 countries, speaking 35 languages and will be seen by over 200 million viewers internationally. FIC is projecting a similar ratings trend, as seen in the US and Spain, in the rest of its markets. 50% of AMC’s The Walking Dead social media fans are international; a staggering number that validates the commitment of international viewers to the show.

Some of FIC’s key markets to launch the show later this week:

Tues Oct 18th: Latin America, Brazil, Portugal, South Africa,

Weds Oct 19th: Middle East

Thurs Oct 20th: Norway

Friday Oct 21st: UK, Germany

Sat Oct 22nd: Poland, Korea

Congratulations again to The Walking Dead, your numbers have blown our heads off. Sorry, it’s irresistible.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.