"The Bible" Setting Ratings Records

"The Bible" premiered last Sunday night (March 3) and was watched by over 27 million cumulative viewers that tuned in to all or part of the series on Sunday night, making it the #1 show in all of television for the night and the #1 cable entertainment telecast for the year. "The Bible" had two showings on premiere night, and averaged 14.8 million viewers, 5 million Adults 18-49 and 5.6 million Adults 25-54. In the 8-10pm premiere 13.1 million total people watched, including 4.6 million Adults 25-54. The Lifetime Channel even aired re-runs of the series on their network this past week.

Like Us on Facebook

With the new hottest show of the year, episode two kept up the high ratings and even started garnering support and interest from celebrities like LL Cool J, Lisa Rinna and even Oprah Winfrey. During episode two Sunday night, Oprah sent out several tweets while watching including, "Samson "distracted " by Delilah. fatal flaw # TheBible".

Even #thebible has been trending number 1 worldwide on twitter because of the series and the celebrity influence on social media.

With ratings for the series staying high, viewership is actually predicted to increase even more as the series finishes its final 3 (2 hour) episodes. Sunday night tv ratings were in competition with 60 Minutes (CBS) getting 11.35m viewers and The Amazing Race getting (CBS) 9.23m viewers.

The extremely high ratings are proving the nation's curiosity about the bible and Jesus Christ. Whether or not every viewer calls themselves a Christian, they are tuning in nonetheless. Believers seem to really be enjoying all of the visuals to share with the stories that they have read for years.

Producer Mark Burnell says after the premiere week, "How about the fact that we beat The Walking Dead? The Bible beat zombies." He cheerfully continues, "The Bible has the greatest stories in the history of the world. But beyond that [without the Bible], there wouldn't be Lord of the Rings, there would never be Narnia, we wouldn't have Matrix!"

Marks wife and co-producer, Roma Downey adds, "We have the latest and greatest CGI available...we had an opportunity to bring this great bible story to the screen in fresh visual ways."

Episode 3 airs this Sunday night at 7pm CST on The History Channel.