“Downton Abbey” Ratings Continue To Dip
The new season of “Downton Abbey” on Britain’s ITV1 averaged 8.4 million British viewers Sunday night for a 31.8 percent share of people watching TV at 9pm, down from the previous week and the year-ago period, according to latest U.K. ratings data. The average viewership was down from an average audience of 8.6 million for the costume drama’s third season debut a week earlier, when we first saw Mr. Bates (Brendan Coyle, pictured) in prison. The second episode was also about 1 million viewers below the equivalent episode in 2011. The Sunday peak audience for “Downton Abbey,” which overnight failed to pick up more than one Emmy award for Maggie Smith despite a range of nominations, hit 9.3 million.
