This weekend, the phenomenon “˜Breaking Bad‘ made its final appearance on American television as well as Netflix in the US and Europe. According to network AMC, 10.3 million viewers tuned in to watch the end of Walter White’s story, a record high for the program, and an increase of more than 300 percent over the season finale last year.
The cultural conversation was in full swing on Twitter as well. According to AMC, 1.24 million tweets from over 601,000 different users referenced the show while the finale was broadcast on the east and west coasts of the US. The activity hit a peak of 22,373 tweets per minute just as the first showing began, with series star Bryan Cranston’s thank you to fans retweeted over 52,000 times.
Viewers watching Breaking Bad through illegitimate means also wasted no time in viewing the finale. According to TorrentFreak, the episode was downloaded by more than 500,000 people in the first 12 hours after it aired, with 18 percent of downloads originating in Australia. The United States and the UK rounded out the top three countries pirating the show.
The vastly successful show has now come to an end, but it proved as another reminder that amazing things can happen both on networks and the internet when material is fresh and unique.
