‘Downton’ season premiere breaks PBS prime-time record with 7.9M viewers
BY RITA SHERROW World Television Editor
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Sunday’s season premiere
of “Downton Abbey” marked
a milestone for public television.
The British drama, which
returned for its third season
on channel 11, scored big
with viewers, drawing a record
7.9 million total viewers,
according to nytimes.com.
The premiere “quadrupled
the average PBS prime-time
rating and exceeded the
average rating of the second
season premiere of ‘Downton
Abbey’ by 96 percent,”
according to WGBH, a PBS
member station, in a news
release issued Monday.
PBS outdrew Fox, ABC and
NBC in the 8-9 p.m. time period
Sunday but was beaten
by CBS’ “The Good Wife”
with 10 million viewers and
“The Mentalist” with 10.7,
according to the report.
That’s almost twice the
4.2 million who watched the
season two opener. A typical
PBS prime-time show draws
about 2 million viewers, according
to guardian.co.uk.com.
“‘Downton Abbey’
continues to enthrall audiences
nationwide, and this
season is especially riveting
with the addition of Shirley
MacLaine to the cast and the
lively interaction between
her and Maggie Smith,”
Paula Kerger, chief executive
of PBS, said in a statement to
the website.
“I’m so pleased that
audiences have returned to
‘Downton Abbey’ on their
local stations to continue to
enjoy some of the best drama
on television.”
This season of the hit
series, which airs Sundays
through Feb. 17, also features
the addition of several faces,
a threat to the “Downton”
way of life, a further shakeup
of British tradition and
the widely reported deaths of
two characters.
“Downton Abbey” has won
seven Emmy Awards and is
nominated for three Golden
Globes; that ceremony airs
Sunday.
Watch a preview of
episode two, airing at 8 p.m.
Sunday on PBS, channel 11, at
tulsaworld.com/downtonS3E2.
Lambert talks Chris Brown protest, Shelton, more
If singer Chris Brown
duets with Rihanna at this
year’s Grammys, he’ll likely
hear about it from country
music award-winner Miranda
Lambert, reports radaronline.com.
Brown, 23, who was convicted
of assaulting former
girlfriend Rihanna right
before the 2009 Grammy
Awards, performed twice on
the 2012 show. It’s a move
that sparked protests from
Lambert, 29, who is married
to Oklahoma’s country
music star and “The Voice”
coach Blake Shelton, and
others.
And she hasn’t changed her mind about the situation,
according to an interview
in the February issue of
Redbook magazine on stands
next week. She and Brown
are nominated for Grammys
this year.
“I didn’t feel right about
not saying something,”
Lambert tells the magazine.
“The loudmouth that I am,
I say what I think. I wanted
everyone to know that I
don’t agree with the message
it’s sending to young
women. It’s not OK. At all.
To be celebrated after doing
something like that.
“I don’t think it’s right, I
never will, and I will stand
by what I said till the day
that I die.”
Last year, she tweeted:
“Not cool that we act like
that didn’t happen. He needs
to listen to Gunpowder and
lead and be put back in his
place. Not at the Grammys.”
Lamberts tweet referenced
her 2007 hit “Gunpowder
and Lead,” which
tells the story of a woman
planning to kill her abusive
husband when he gets out
of jail.
In 2009, Brown was
sentenced to five months
of probation, six months
of community labor and
ordered to stay 50 yards
away from Rihanna except at
music events. The Barbadian
singer reunited with Brown
earlier last year and has
been tweeting photos of the
couple together. They have
also collaborated on songs.
But Lambert tells the
magazine she isn’t feuding
with Brown.
“There was no feud. I’m
right, they’re wrong!”
Also in the Redbook interview,
Lambert talks about
feeling insecure, spending
time apart from her husband
and preserving their private
life.
On feeling insecure:
“I’m insecure about tons
of things!
“I cry onstage once a
week, singing ‘The House
That Built Me,’ and I always
tell the crowd, ‘Don’t tell
anyone I was cryin’!’ Or
‘Over You,’ when Blake and I
had all that loss in our lives.
It was really hard to get up
there after we had been to
three funerals.
“(Blake’s) dad died,
my childhood best friend
passed away, and then my
childhood dog, all in two
weeks. I went back onstage,
and I wasn’t ready, but the
crowd just embraced me.
I was like, ‘OK, I’m really
real. Like, all of this toughgirl
image? My walls are
down, and all these people
can see it.’ But it was a good
moment for me.
“I just laid it out there,
like, ‘I’m normal, I’m a girl, I
have PMS, and I get emotional,
and I’m sad sometimes,
and that’s it.’ I feel like
I got over the hump of trying
to be like, ‘I have a chip on
my shoulder, I’m strong all
the time,’ you know? Because
no one is.”
On spending time apart
from her husband:
“I love it. This time I
hadn’t seen him in 11 days,
and he was just so happy
when I got here, it was like
(she makes an angels-singing
voice) ‘Ahh, you’re here.’
When I go to ‘The Voice’ set
and everyone says, ‘Blake’s
been talking about you so
much,’ it just makes me feel
special, you know?
And on trying to keep
their private life private:
“I’m more protective. He’s
the sweetest guy.
“Like, he will talk to
anyone, sign anything, take
a picture with everyone.
And if I don’t stop it at some
point, it ruins our whole
night. I have to be the bad
guy.
“The people are like, ‘Oh,
God, don’t mess with her,
she’ll murder people.’ ”
Genie Francis will reprise role on ‘General Hospital’
Genie Francis will reprise
her iconic role on “General
Hospital” starting Feb. 11 on
ABC, according to ew.com
The long-running soap
opera celebrates its 50th anniversary
April 1.
Emmy-winning actress
Francis, who was a cast
member of the daytime
drama from 1976-2008,
asked only one thing of the
show’s executive producer
Frank Valenti, according to
the website.
As a mother of three
children on the show, she
wanted viewers to have a
good explanation for her
absence from the fictional
Port Charles all these years,
the website reported.
“It’s not for me to tell
them how to run their show.
But my biggest concern was
that there had to be a good
reason for me to stay away
from my family,” she told
ew.com. No word on what
the explanation will be or
how long Francis will be on
the show.
The actress, who was last
seen in Hallmark Channel’s
“The Note” and its sequel
“Notes From the Heart
Healer,” won a Daytime
Emmy for her work on
“General Hospital” in 2007.
“General Hospital” airs
at 1 p.m. weekdays on ABC,
channel 8.
Associated Images:
Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess (left) and Shirley MacLaine as Martha Levinson star in the TV series “Downton Abbey.” NICK BRIGGS / PBS, Carnival Film & Television Limited 2012 for MASTERPIECE
“I love it,” says Miranda Lambert on spending time apart from husband, Blake Shelton. “This time I hadn’t seen him in 11 days, and he was just so happy when I got here, it was like ‘Ahh, you’re here.’ ” WADE PAYNE / Invision / AP
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