‘Downton Abbey’ season 5 premiere ratings down in United Kingdom

There’s been a fascinating thing going on for some time when it comes to “Downton Abbey.” While the show is very successful in Britain, over the past year or so it has felt more like a commercial and critical phenomenon in America rather than Britain. It was shunned from the BAFTA Awards recently, and now it has drawn its lowest ratings for a premiere since the start of season 1 back in 2010.

Overall, the show drew a total of 8.4 million viewers across ITV and ITV+1, which is still a pretty impressive figure given the total population of Great Britain. However, 9.5 million watched the season 4 premiere, which may have been aided more by the show bouncing off of the death of Matthew and curiosity over what was going to be coming up next.

What we see this as is a sign that the show is starting to wind down a little, and if they want to keep themselves from truly being stale, the sixth season really should be the last. The only reason at this point we do not recommend that the show end in five seasons is because they are too deep in the process, and we don’t want the show to turn on a dime and plan to be the last season at the last second. Typically, you get a less-than-desirable result when you utilize something like this.

Maybe the numbers will improve somewhat in subsequent weeks, but we personally doubt it. The show should just be happy continuing to draw these numbers.

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Photo: ITV