‘Downton Abbey’ season 5 gets the greenlight after amazing ratings in finale
No surprises as Downton Abbey has been renewed for a fifth season as the fourth season on ITV concludes.
The airing had the highest ratings of any UK drama in 2013 so the series is showing no signs of slowing down in popularity.
Season 4 doesn’t arrive in the US until January and the fifth season likely won’t air in America until early 2015.
Creator Julian Fellowes recently stated that Downton “won’t be like an American show that goes on for 12 years,” adding that he doesn’t know what there will be after season five, so it’s possible that the show may ended in 2015 or soon there after.
The show’s high ratings have kept it in headlines all season. This on episode 2 from Deadline: 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.
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.
