Not everyone was concentrating on football on Super Bowl Sunday. PBS says the ratings for the critically-acclaimed, award-winning series Downton Abbey were high enough to earn it a second place finish behind only the Super Bowl on Sunday, February 3rd. According to Nielsen’s overnight data, the February 3rd episode of season three had an average of 6.6 million viewers. The February 3rd episode also had a huge presence on social media, with one particular tweet from @PBS being retweeted 4,500 times.
Downton Abbey‘s season three premiere is now PBS’ top-rated dramatic broadcast in the network’s history. Overall, season 3 of Downton Abbey has been averaging numbers that are 72% above the first five episodes of season 2. And comparing January 2012 to January 2013 numbers, the show saw an increase of 35% in streams of Downton Abbey content on PBS video platforms.
The 90-minute finale of season three will air on February 17, 2013.
