Last week the fourth season of Mad Men premiered and while the episode was entertaining as always (I am a fan) the ratings were a mere 5% above last season’s premiere. This growth was also significantly lower than previous season premieres: 167% from Season 1 to 2, and 44% from Season 2 to 3. Also of concern is that the 18-49 demo rating remained flat at 0.9 ratings points or approximately 1.2 million viewers.

A great article posted yesterday in AdAge highlights while Mad Men has a relatively small audience, which has equally translated into not so many advertising dollars, it has still been a success since its premium status allows AMC to command higher carriage fees. According to SNL Kagan these are up on average up from 21 cents per subscriber in 2001 to 24  cents today. Similarly, Mad Men’s presence on AMC was obviously an important factor for the recent carriage dispute between AT&T U-Verse and Rainbow Media (subsidiary of Cablevision and owner of AMC); uncoicidentally a settlement was reached less than 10 days before the premiere of Mad Men season 4.

Still, if Mad Men’s ratings have apexed, as the recent premiere indicated, it is critical that AMC look towards other series to sustain the channel’s position in the long run. Breaking Bad, last year’s mini-series The Prisoner and the new series Rubicon, are all indications that AMC is doing precisely that. Rubicon’s premiere last night was actually the strongest ever for an AMC original production so perhaps they’ve finally found a show worthy of filling Mad Men’s shoes, whenever it’s gone. In the meantime I’ll just enjoy the episodes.