Proving that a cult basic-cable underdog can eventually find ratings success through the simple grassroots effort of everyone talking about it, all the time, everywhere, Breaking Bad continues to grow its audience, with the fifth-season premiere scoring 2.9 million viewers—a 14-percent improvement over last year's debut, which was itself a 30-percent uptick over the previous year, and so on. The show also saw a 34-percent rise in adults who can now finally have conversations with their coworkers today, such as talking about this Hollywood Reporter profile that says AMC originally wanted Matthew Broderick or John Cusack before recognizing the valuable additive properties of Cranston, and how wrong that would have been. Anyway, as Entertainment Weekly notes, it's unusual for a heavily serialized show to actually gain viewers as it goes on. But in addition to it garnering so much critical acclaim and reaping plenty of awards, analysts believe that its unpredictable increase in popularity can be directly attributed to that time you put "I AM THE ONE WHO KNOCKS" as your Facebook status.
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