'Penny Dreadful' opens with about 2.3m viewers total

Showtime's new Victorian horror series Penny Dreadful debuted Sunday with an average 872,000 first-airing viewers and 1.44 million viewers for the night. The launch, which had an additional 900,000 viewers sampling the episode prior to the first airing, exceeded that of network hits Homeland and Masters of Sex. Showtime said about 62 percent of the series audience was under 50 years old, making it the youngest audience since the Dexter premiere in 2006. Showtime's free preview weekend viewers didn't factor into the total of the estimated 2.3 million viewers who watched the episode across all platforms. Penny Dreadful stars Eva Green and John Hartnett.