AMC’s The Walking Dead returned last night with the mid-season premiere of its fourth season, delivering 15.8 million viewers and 10.4 million adults 18-49. It was the #1 telecast for the night among adults 18-49, including the Sochi Winter Olympics. The Walking Dead continues to be the #1 show on all of television among the coveted 18-49 demographic. With time-shifted playback, last night’s premiere should exceed 20 million viewers.

Following the 9 pm premiere of The Walking Dead, AMC presented Talking Dead at 10 pm, which became the highest premiere in series history with 5.9 million viewers, including 3.9 million adults aged 18-49. Hosted by Chris Hardwick, Talking Dead features Hardwick and fans, actors, producers and other TV enthusiasts, discussing and dissecting that night’s Dead premiere. The mid-season premiere featured guests Greg Nicotero and Dania Gurira.

The mid-season return of The Walking Dead also dominated TV-related Twitter activity, and was the #1 show of the night on Twitter across all cable and broadcast networks with 1.24 million show-related Tweets from 526,174 unique authors, generating a total of 68.4 million impressions, according to Nielsen SocialGuide. Twitter activity peaked at 9 pm EST with 41,011 Tweets, representing 86.6 percent of all television-related Twitter activity at that time. The Walking Dead was also the #1 program for the day in TV-related Twitter activity, with the most unique authors and total Tweets. Leading into the premiere, a live chat with The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus helped spike show-related tweets. With fans sending in their questions to Reedus, the dedicated hashtag, #askNorman, was trending world wide on Twitter. The mid-season premiere also generated a number of simultaneous trending topics including #TheWalkingDead, TheWalkingDeadMarathon, TWD, Hershel, WalkerGotMyShoe, Michonne, Rick, Pudding, WalkingDead, TalkingDead, ItsForYou.