AMC has renewed “Fear the Walking Dead” for Season 3, the cabler announced Friday.

The third season, consisting of 16 episodes, will air in 2017. AMC has also renewed “Fear’s” live aftershow, “Talking Dead: Fear,” hosted by Chris Hardwick, which will air following new episodes of “Fear.”

The “Walking Dead” companion series premiered its sophomore season on April 10, delivering 8.8 million viewers in Nielsen’s live plus-3 measurement, making it the second-highest rated series on cable in the adult 18-49 demo, behind only “The Walking Dead,” and the #7 show on television, counting both cable and broadcast.

“Fear the Walking Dead” is executive produced by Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd, Greg Nicotero, David Alpert and showrunner David Erickson and hails from AMC Studios.

“What Dave Erickson and Robert Kirkman have invented in ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ is to be applauded. Watching Los Angeles crumble through the eyes of our characters and seeing each make decisions and try to figure out the rules of their new world – it’s fresh, eerie and compelling and we’re all in for the ride,” said Charlie Collier, president of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios. “As Victor Strand observed, ‘The only way to survive a mad world is to embrace the madness.’ We thank the millions of fans for embracing this mad world and look forward to sailing far into the future.”



“Fear the Walking Dead” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.