Preliminary ratings for the third season premiere of “Downton Abbey” suggest that the show has done something remarkable: catapulted PBS into the same league as commercial broadcasters like ABC and NBC, at least for a night.

With 7.9 million viewers, the premiere on Sunday night “quadrupled the average PBS prime time rating and exceeded the average rating of the second season premiere of “’Downton Abbey”’ by 96 percent,” PBS and a member station, WGBH, said in a news release on Monday.

The high viewership indicates two things: that many fans of the first two seasons tolerated the delay of months between the British premiere of the third season and the American premiere and that positive press for the show has generated new fans.

While “Downton Abbey” was on, PBS outrated Fox, ABC and NBC, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings. (CBS still ranked No. 1 for the night with episodes of “The Good Wife” with 10 million viewers and “The Mentalist” with 10.7 million.)

” ‘“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. “”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.””

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