Downton Abbey Wins Christmas Day Ratings War

Downton Abbey is the highest rating United Kingdom drama of the past decade across any channel, with an average of 11 million viewers over the course of the five series, including Christmas specials.

The success of the period drama’s final episode is unlikely to diminish fans’ calls for a big screen followup, despite wrapping up long-running storylines including the love life of Lady Edith.

However, with no one show breaking the seven million barrier, viewing figures as a whole are down on previous years.

It was the first time Downton had ever topped the Christmas ratings and a fitting end to the beloved series.

At 3PM, the Queen’s Christmas message seen by a total of 7.4 million viewers when you combine the BBC (6.1) and ITV (1.3) figures, down on 2014’s combined total of 7.8 million.

In its swansong episode, viewers watched as Lady Edith finally got her happy ending with Bertie Pelham, Lady Mary discovered she was pregnant and Anna and Mr Bates welcomed their first child – with no tragic deaths to break the reverie. It was the only returning show to increase viewers on last Christmas, up over 1 million viewers.

For months Lord Julian Fellowes, the show’s creator and soul-writer, has insisted that he always saw an end in sight and believed that this was the right time to send the Grantham family and their staff off on the rest of their journeys away from us.

Unlike overnight audience ratings, consolidated figures take catch-up services into account.

ITV also offered viewers extended, hour-long editions of both Emmerdale and Coronation Street, which was watched by 5.6 million viewers.

Downton Abbey bosses have denied reports the show ended because they could not secure Dame Maggie Smith for a seventh series.

Strictly Come Dancing’s Christmas special ranked in second place in the rankings with 6.5 million viewers, down 400,000 on last year’s show.