Downton Abbey hands ITV Christmas Day ratings victory

However, the BBC did score a big win earlier in the evening with the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special, which was the second most popular show on the day with 6.5 million viewers.

“We all feel very blessed”.

The final episode of the hit ITV drama was trending on Twitter worldwide on Christmas Day with the final scene, which saw the cast singing Auld Lang Syne as they celebrated New Year’s Eve, an emotional farewell to the show. The frequently unfortunate in love Lady Edith lastly got her completely satisfied ending, as she Wednesday Bertie Pelham, while servants Anna & Mr Bates welcomed their 1st child.

He told The Sun: ‘We have a final season that’s as strong as the first because we quit while we were ahead.

The ultimate episode of the period drama pulled within the festive viewers on ITV.

Over on ITV, the final two-hour instalment of Downton will kick off at the exact same time.

The first Downton Abbey Christmas special in 2011 drew an average United Kingdom overnight audience of 8.6 million and a peak audience of 9.1 million, which rose to 12.1 million in the consolidated viewer figures, followed by 6.8 million in 2012 and 6.6 million in 2013.

Only the Queen’s Christmas message was watched by more people, with 7.2 million tuning in live to hear the 10-minute lunchtime address across both ITV1 and BBC1.

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

According to Jake Kanter of Broadcast Magazine, 13.4 million people tuned into Christmas Day programming between the hours of 6am and 2am, which is only slightly down on 2014s figure of 13.6m.