‘Downton Abbey’ season 4 ratings grows as Crawley’s hit new high

Downton Abbey is off to an incredible start this season with another jump in ratings for their second episode of season 4.

The Crawley clan returned to the UK’s ITV Sunday night for the 2nd episode of Season 4 with 9.6M average viewers, a 100K jump on last week’s premiere episode, and a 39.4% share reports Deadline.

That was also a huge 1.5M more viewers than tuned into the 2nd epsiode of Season 3 last year, according to overnight ratings.

Hyperable writes “It was interesting to see Lady Mary (played by Michelle Dockery) struggling to move on from Matthew, but words of wisdom from various members of the estate – primarily Violet and Carson – helped her come out of the rut.”

Fans must agree as the debut episode scored a series premiere high of 9.5M viewers and a 39.6% share; 900K viewers up on Season 3′s start.

Season 3 is thus far the show’s highest-rated in the UK with consolidated ratings averaging 11.9M viewers for a 40% share. It was also PBS’ highest-rated drama ever with a total of 24M viewers and an average season audience of 11.5M.