South Africa loves Downton Abbey

Cape Town – British sense and sensibility (and a touch of class) has once again conquered South Africa with thousands of viewers tuning in to the year's biggest and best new TV drama, helping to make Downton Abbey on BBC Entertainment (DStv channel 120) a massive new TV hit in the country.

The first episode of the high-quality British drama by Julian Fellowes pulled a massive 144 000 viewers to BBC Entertainment, giving the channel major numbers to boast about.

The show, an easily accessible period drama set 100 years ago revolving around the aristocratic Crawley family at Downton Abbey and the servants who work for them, has drawn rave reviews in Britain and America and now has South African viewers enthralled as well.

The success of the debut episode made BBC Entertainment instantly the number one international TV channel on DStv in the 20:30 timeslot on Sunday. The episode also scored the second highest viewership figure on BBC Entertainment so far this year.

Jon Farrar, the vice president for programming for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region for BBC Worldwide Channels, called Downton Abbey's South African start a "successful debut".

BBC Entertainment just snagged yet another highly prized TV show – the four part mini-series Titanic which will start on April 15 on the channel and is a special retelling in four episodes of the fateful voyage of the oceanliner.

The April starting date will co-incide with the international roll-out of this ITV Studios-produced show which happens to also be written by Julian Fellowes.