'Breaking Bad' midseason finale ratings way up over Season 4

Sunday's (Sept. 2) midseason finale of "Breaking Bad" -- and the show's eight-episode summer run as a whole -- scored big ratings gains over last year.

The AMC series' last episode of 2012 scored 2.8 million viewers, a 47-percent improvement on the 1.9 million who watched the Season 4 finale last October. Sunday's episode also scored big gains among adults 18-49 (1.7 million, up 37 percent over last year) and adults 25-54 (1.5 million, up 34 percent).

As a whole, the first half of Season 5 is the most-watched to date for "Breaking Bad." The eight episodes averaged 2.6 million viewers, up from 1.9 million last year, and 1.6 million people in the 18-49 demographic, a 56-percent improvement over last season, when just over a million people in that age group watched the series.

The gains for this season came despite the fact that "Breaking Bad's" potential audience shrank a little because of AMC's blackout on satellite provider Dish Network. AMC Networks and Dish are involved in a bitter dispute over transmission fees and other issues.

The final eight episodes of "Breaking Bad" are scheduled to air next summer.