LONDON – Downton Abbey has become the fastest-selling TV drama DVD box set of all time on Amazon in the UK, beating a slew of TV greats including The Wire and The West Wing as well as British favorites Fawlty Towers.
The ITV1 drama made by NBCUniversal’s London production arm proved a cult winner on its debut a year ago, averaging 10 million viewers in the first series, and is set to beat those expectations when series two beings on Sunday night (Sept. 18).
Amazon’s London-based director of DVD and Music John Boumphrey said that the online retailer was already getting pre-orders for series two, which won’t go on sale for another two months.
“Downtown Abbey has been phenomenally successful since hitting our screens last year,” he told The Telegraph.
“Sales of the DVD box set after just one series have made the British drama more popular than all of the big-hitting American TV dramas as well as long-standing British TV favorites.”
Amazon does not release specific sales figures as a matter of policy.
With its mix of storylines about the constricting lives of British upper classes and the below stairs trials and intrigues of their retinue of servants, the Julian Fellowes-conceived project has become the best known British period drama in recent times.
A stellar cast including Maggie Smith and Hugh Dancy will begin the new series on the eve of the First World War, exploring the shifting social and political standards triggered by the turbulent and tragic events.
