Yellowstone, the acclaimed neo-Western drama series that has been the talk of the town on the Paramount Network, made its broadcast debut on CBS, and boy, did it make some noise. According to a Deadline report, the premiere episode, which aired on a Sunday night, roped in a whopping 6.56 million viewers.
To put that in perspective, when Yellowstone first trotted out on Paramount Network back in 2018, it garnered about 2.8 million viewers. That's a staggering jump of 132%, but to be honest, with the show's remarkable popularity and CBS's broader reach, were we really that surprised?
Now, if you're thinking, "Well, it's just one episode," you better hold on to your cowboy hat for this next bit of news. Yellowstone's premiere viewership numbers have made it the top entertainment program of the week. Just to compare, this is the largest audience for a scripted series on broadcast networks since the season finale of NCIS in May earlier this year.
What's impressive is that though the NFL game delayed CBS's primetime lineup, pushing Yellowstone to start nearly 30 minutes later than scheduled, the show managed to be the fourth most-watched program of the night, only trailing behind the NFL games and the famous reporter-centered investigative show, 60 Minutes.
