'Downton Abbey' Premiere Hooks 10.2 Million, Shattering Record

Times my be bleak for the Crawley family, but they're certainly not for Julian Fellowes, the show's creator. According to the New York Times, Sunday's season 4 premiere on PBS returned to record-breaking ratings for the series with 10.2 million viewers.

The premiere attracted about the same audience size as the series finale of Breaking Bad (10.3 million). Both numbers count just those watching as the shows aired. The Downton Abbey premiere audience also closely matched that of the Scandal premiere (10.5 million), the Times reported. Ratings from season 3 of the show held steady between about 7 and 8 million viewers. Read more...