DOWNTON ABBEY on Masterpiece Classic Rates Second on Super Bowl Sunday

PBS and WGBH announced today that "Downton Abbey, Season 3" on Masterpiece CLASSICrated second only to the Super Bowl on February 3 (Nielsen Overnights data, 4.4 household rating). The drama, a Carnival/MASTERPIECE co-production, has seen a strong audience all season; the average audience for Season 3's first five episodes is 72% above the first five episodes of Season 2. Last night's episode averaged 6.6 million viewers (Nielsen Fast National data).

The season premiere on January 6 earned a 7.4 national (Live +7) household rating and averaged 11.1 million viewers growing from a 5.1 household rating and average audience of 7.9 million viewers as first reported in the Fast National overnight ratings making it the top-rated PBS drama of all time.

These record-breaking numbers carry over into the digital space. On Sunday, January 6, a record-breaking number of unique visitors went to the MASTERPIECE site, and January 2013 vs. January 2012 saw a 53% increase in unique visitors overall, and a 174% increase in mobile visits. Additionally, in the month of January there were more than 6.3 million streams of all "Downton Abbey" content on PBS video platforms, which is 35% higher than January 2012.

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