ITV originally broadcast Downton Abbey in the United Kingdom. The period drama premiered on the ITV network on 26 September 2010 and quickly became one of the channel’s biggest television successes.
The series was created and co-written by Julian Fellowes and produced by Carnival Films. Its setting—a fictional Yorkshire estate occupied by the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants—allowed the programme to combine upstairs-downstairs drama with major events from British history.
ITV’s network broadcast covered the main UK transmission, although regional complications arose in Scotland. STV, the ITV franchisee for central and northern Scotland, initially chose not to show the programme, prompting criticism from viewers. It later broadcast the first and second series.
American viewers often associate Downton Abbey with PBS because PBS aired it in the United States. That was a later international broadcast arrangement, not the show’s original UK network: the programme began on ITV before arriving on PBS in January 2011 as part of Masterpiece.