--
The cast of Downton Abbey, Season 5. Credit: Carnival Film and Television Limited 2014 for MASTERPIECE
Downton Abbey, Season 5
on MASTERPIECE
Premieres to Huge Audience
Highest-Rated Drama in PBS History Starts Fifth Season
Strong With Average Audience of 10.1 Million
ARLINGTON, VA; January 6, 2015 -- PBS and WGBH announced today that Sunday's premiere of Downton Abbey, Season 5 on MASTERPIECE enthralled viewers nationwide as the Crawley family returned to face the changing tides of England in 1924. An average audience of 10.1 million viewers tuned in for Sunday's premiere (Nielsen Fast National data, 6.1 household rating). Downton Abbey on MASTERPIECE remains the highest-rated drama in PBS history.
The fifth season premiere of the Emmy , Golden Globe and SAG Award -winning series, a Carnival Films/MASTERPIECE co-production, is the second-highest rated episode of the series to date, nearly even with the Season 4 premiere (10.2 million viewers, 6.2 household rating Nielsen Fast National, Live+Same Day). Between 9:00-10:15 p.m., PBS was the second most-watched network on Sunday (based on weighted metered market program averages).
Viewership for the premiere remained solid throughout the episode's one-hour, 15-minute duration. Many of these viewers stayed to watch THE MANNERS OF DOWNTON ABBEY, a one-hour documentary exploring the world of English etiquette with host Alastair Bruce, historical advisor to Downton Abbey. Viewership for the program was 250 percent above the season-to-date time period average for Sunday nights from 10:15-11:15 p.m.
We're incredibly excited that Downton Abbey's' fans came out in force for the premiere of what has become a cultural phenomenon. Well also be looking at time-shifted and online viewing over the next few weeks as the season progresses, said Beth Hoppe, Chief Programming Executive and General Manager, General Audience Programming, PBS. We'd like to thank our partners at Carnival and Masterpiece, the fans who have made Downton Abbey' a post-holiday treat, and the many PBS stations around the country who helped make Sunday night a success.
Downton Abbey has great legs,' as they say on Broadway!, said MASTERPIECE executive producer Rebecca Eaton. We are proud and grateful to be part of a series that is so impeccably acted, scripted, and produced. No wonder it has won the hearts of millions of viewers.
Gareth Neame, executive producer of Downton Abbey, and managing director of Carnival Films, which produces the series, added, America has whole-heartedly embraced the Crawley family and those who serve them since the first season of Downton' and we are very appreciative. Were thrilled to have season five, of which we are quite proud, off to such a strong start. On behalf of the actors, producers, crew and our good partners at PBS, thank you for continuing to make Downton' one of the most watched television series in the world.
According to Nielsen, a Twitter TV audience of 1.6 million people saw more than 48,000 tweets during the premiere evening, generating a total of 6.3 million impressions and making it the #2 primetime series episode, ranked by Unique Audience. PBS and MASTERPIECE insiders as well as moderators from Tom and Lorenzo (@tomandlorenzo), Jarett Wieselman of BuzzFeed (@JarettSays) and Men In Blazers (@meninblazers) will continue to host live discussions during each broadcast to connect directly with fans on social media.
To engage viewers in the series' premiere, more than 130 local PBS stations hosted premiere screenings in December and January, collectively drawing tens of thousands of fans nationwide. Member stations created events ranging from teas to dinners to cruises to involve community members in the excitement of the series.
The new season is available for streaming free on PBS station websites, the PBS Video Portal and PBS' apps on Xbox, Roku, FireTV and Apple TV for a limited time after each national broadcast. Online excitement has been building for Season 5 over the past several months, with nearly 2.2 million streams of previews and clips across all PBS platforms leading up to the Season 5 premiere. (Source: Google Analytics 9/22/14 1/4/15)
There were more than 635,000 streams of Downton Abbey, Season 4 full episodes across all PBS platforms in the month leading up to the broadcast premiere of Season 5. Nearly 60 percent of Season 4 catch-up viewing occurred in the seven days before the broadcast premiere. (Source: Google Analytics 12/1/14 1/4/15)
Amazon Prime members can now stream all four past seasons of Downton Abbey. Amazon Prime Instant Video is the exclusive subscription video on demand (SVOD) home for Downton Abbey.
Fans can also purchase Seasons 1-4 of Downton Abbey and pre-order Season 5 through sites and services including iTunes (where it is currently the top-selling TV season), Amazon.com and ShopPBS.org.
For updates pertaining to Downton Abbey, go to pbs.org/downton or follow #DowntonPBS on Twitter.
Downton Abbey is a Carnival Films/MASTERPIECE Co-Production written and created by Julian Fellowes. The series is executive produced by Gareth Neame.
About PBS
PBS, with its over 350 member stations, offers all Americans the opportunity to explore new ideas and new worlds through television and online content. Each month, PBS reaches nearly 109 million people through television and over 28 million people online, inviting them to experience the worlds of science, history, nature and public affairs; to hear diverse viewpoints; and to take front row seats to world-class drama and performances. PBS' broad array of programs has been consistently honored by the industry's most coveted award competitions. Teachers of children from pre-K through 12th grade turn to PBS for digital content a
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
20/10/2025
Inside TAMS: How Time-Addressable Media Stores could redefine sports workflows By Paul Markham
Friday, October 17, 2025 - 08:57
Print This Story
A penalty...
20/10/2025
Transformational production: Inside TVN's remote production push for the DFL...
20/10/2025
How NBC Sports Transitioned Stamford Facility to One Format: 1080p HDRMulti-year plan harmonizes workflows, simplifies operationsBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial ...
20/10/2025
NBA on NBC' Studio Production Team Is Ready for Tip-Off With Coast-to-Coast...
20/10/2025
Under pressure: TVN CEO Markus Osthaus considers the German sports broadcasting ...
20/10/2025
(L-R) Maria Dizzia, Carmen Emmi, and Russell Tovey attend the Plainclothes pre...
20/10/2025
In March, we launched Concerts Near You to help listeners find concerts from their favorite artists. Since then, more than 3 million people have used it to disc...
20/10/2025
Em diversas cidades do Brasil, um movimento tem se fortalecido para celebrar o poder, a beleza e a profundidade da criatividade negra. O Dia AMPLIFIKA, agora em...
20/10/2025
In cities across Brazil, a movement is growing that celebrates the power, beauty, and depth of Black creativity. AMPLIFIKA Day, now in its fifth edition, return...
20/10/2025
Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft rendering...
20/10/2025
DENVER and MUNICH Imagine Communications today announced its plans to acquire Pixel Power Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Rohde & Schwarz. Financial terms of...
20/10/2025
LOS ANGELES G Morgan has joined Globecast, a provider of broadcast, media and entertainment managed services, as executive vice president of sales, Globecast Am...
20/10/2025
PLYMOUTH, Wisc. Heartland Video Systems and Zixi have partnered to enable broadcast-quality live video delivery over any IP network....
20/10/2025
A. R. Rahman on Facing Fear and Finding the Divine In an interview with Berklee President Jim Lucchese, the Oscar-winning composer reflects on how courage and...
20/10/2025
Monday 20 October 2025
To view this content, please enable our use of cookies. ...
20/10/2025
Rohde & Schwarz transfers Pixel Power to Imagine Communications Companies work collaboratively to ensure continuity and ongoing support for existing customers...
20/10/2025
RT 's Prime Time is set to host the final Presidential Election Debate this Tuesday night, October 21, providing an opportunity to hear directly from Irelan...
20/10/2025
NVIDIA and Google Cloud are expanding access to accelerated computing to transform the full spectrum of enterprise workloads, from visual computing to agentic a...
19/10/2025
Back to All News
Sins of Kujo' Comes to Life in New Live-Action Series Set for Spring 2026
Entertainment
19 October 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to cl...
18/10/2025
New England Sports Network (NESN) has chosen Harmonic, working with Astound Business Solutions, as its enterprise technology partner to transform primary distri...
18/10/2025
NEW ORLEANS, La. In the run-up to the start of the NBA season, WVUE-TV and Gray Local Media have announced a deal with DirecTV that will greatly expand access t...
18/10/2025
Berklee Celebrates 40 Years of the Fall Together Concert Faculty composers Bob Pilkington and Greg Hopkins are among the featured artists for this year's ...
17/10/2025
NEP Group Receives New Equity Investment From 26North Partners LP, Co-InvestorsCarlyle remains the largest shareholder as the company prepares for the futureBy ...
17/10/2025
Apple Lands Five-Year Deal for F1 Distribution in the U.S.Besides airing on Apple TV, the sport will be amplified on other Apple servicesBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Ed...
17/10/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Marshall Electronics' Bernie Keach on the Future of PTZ Camera...
17/10/2025
L2 Productions' REMI Facility in Austin Can Produce Content From AnywhereMusic festivals, sports events are produced via flypacks and remote control roomsBy...
17/10/2025
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
17/10/2025
(L-R) Christopher Meyer, Addison Timlin, Cooper Raiff, Lili Reinhart, Alyah Chan...
17/10/2025
M sica e arte se uniram em uma noite especial na semana passada na ZIV Gallery, ...
17/10/2025
Music and art came together for one special night last week at ZIV Gallery, an i...
17/10/2025
Spotify and FC Barcelona are extending our partnership through 2030, continuing a collaboration that's redefining how fans, players, and artists connect. Th...
17/10/2025
MURRIETA, Calif. The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC) has deployed DigitalGlue's creative.space storage platform to streamline video production by centrali...
17/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. Football continued to cement its reputation as a bulwark of TV advertising in Q3 2025 with new data from iSpot that showed both the NFL and coll...
17/10/2025
The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC), the premier competitive saltwater fishing series, has transformed its production workflow by adopting creative.space, the...
17/10/2025
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning multi-camera video productions and remote contribution solutions, announces the release of StudioPro Version 4, ...
17/10/2025
Although the annual Grammy Awards celebration is best known for recognizing achievements in the recording industry, the show often proves a visual spectacle as ...
17/10/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leading provider of software-defined data storage and data services, has promoted Alex Dunfey to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) from his for...
17/10/2025
The University of Arizona (UofA) has significantly upgraded its broadcast communication infrastructure with the integration of Riedel Communications' advanc...
17/10/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that New England Sports Network (NESN), owned by Fenway Sports Group and Delaware North, has selected Harmonic as its en...
17/10/2025
Austin PBS has recently upgraded its facility-wide communications infrastructure, deploying Clear-Com 's Eclipse HX, FreeSpeak II beltpacks, and V-Series ...
17/10/2025
ZEISS announces an open call for the closed BETA testing phase of CinCraft Virtual Lens Technology, the innovative digital tool that brings authentic lens chara...
17/10/2025
Situated in the town of Kokkola, Centria University of Applied Sciences offers higher education across five core fields: engineering, business, social and healt...
17/10/2025
Public information channel in Georgia, USA, to implement a powerful, simple, and cost-effective playout automation platform.
Pebble, the leading automation, co...
17/10/2025
HBO Max is reporting that it has launched in 15 new markets, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Macau, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Ukraine, boosting the streaming serv...
17/10/2025
Netflix said it will make a major push into video podcasts, inking a wide-ranging deal with Spotify through which it will offer 16 podcasts in the U.S. starting...
17/10/2025
Lexington, Ky. As part of a push to highlight its advanced advertising capabilities, Viamedia has launched a new AI-powered ad tech platform and officially rebr...
17/10/2025
NEW YORK QuickLink has announced the release of StudioPro Version 4, which the company is calling the most significant upgrade yet to its flagship video product...
17/10/2025
NEW YORK and CUPERTINO, Calif. Apple and NBCUniversal said they will sell Apple TV and Peacock streaming bundles to U.S. subscribers starting Oct. 20....
-- 
