The season 8 premiere of "The Walking Dead" has yielded a less than favorable number.

The first episode of the eighth season of the hit zombie drama only pulled in 11.4 million viewers. While that number might be considered high, especially since AMC is a cable channel, it's significantly less compared to last season's premiere where viewership tallied to 17.03 million.

Season 8's premiere ratings can be considered startlingly low compared to its past season premieres, the lowest since season 3. Aside from a low premiere rating, "The Walking Dead" season 8 also posted a low viewership in its 18–49 demographic with a 5.0 rating.

Could this be a sign that the show has lost some of its hard-core fans?

Undoubtedly, the premiere episode of the seventh season of "The Walking Dead" generated more anticipation since it revealed several key character deaths and was one of the biggest moments of television in 2016.

But the whole team of "The Walking Dead" can take comfort in the fact the show has managed to beat another hit TV show "Game of Thrones'" season 7 premiere which only had 10.11 million viewers and a 4.7 demo rating.

Overall, while it's true that there was a big drop in the ratings for "The Walking Dead's" premiere episode, it's still not that alarming. It would be interesting to note for the team behind the show that this season's premiere episode, which is normally the most-viewed episode of any given season of any show, posted viewership ratings that merely edged out the average audience rating for the show's entire seventh season.

It might just be that the fans were trying to feel the general sentiment about season 8's first episode and will watch it at a later time. They might also get back to regularly following the show in time for some of the major characters' deaths.

"The Walking Dead" season 8 airs every Sunday at 9 p.m. EDT on AMC.