The first half of 2023 was full of behind-the-scenes chaos for the hit western drama Yellowstone, to the point where a disgruntled Kevin Costner confirmed his exit, which coincided with Paramount Network announcing the flagship drama will be ending after Season 5. Even with all the upcoming Yellowstone shows in the pipeline, the Oscar winner’s strife with co-creator Taylor Sheridan had the potential to totally derail the show’s upward climb to TV-ratings supremacy. Yet, here we are in the Fall TV season, where the Duttons have once again become one of the small screen’s most-watched families thanks to its Season 1 run on CBS.
As such, I’m convinced this essentially unplanned boost in Yellowstone’s popularity goes a long way to balancing the impact of Costner’s impending exit, beyond definitely being a net positive for the series and its fans in the long run.
Why Yellowstone’s CBS Popularity Is Such A Good Thing, Despite Kevin Costner’s Exit
Though the WGA strike and SAG-AFTRA strike obviously put a stop to any ongoing development for the final episodes of Yellowstone Season 5, it allowed for a scheduling gap that CBS needed to fill, resulting in the Sheridan-run drama earning a proper broadcast network run in primetime. Even if the episodes are doubled up and occasionally airing in delayed post-NFL time slots, they’re managing to reach a swath of new viewers that may not have had access to its linear run on Paramount Network, or access to a Peacock subscription to stream all the episodes that have aired so far. And it’s not just fans rewatching the slightly censored eps, either.
Following a research study that concluded 80% of CBS viewers had never watched Yellowstone, network execs made the move to bring it to network TV, and of the 6.6 million people that tuned in for its extended Season 1 premiere broadcast, Variety reports that around half of that total audience were brand new to the series. So even that audience of new viewers is bigger than Yellowstone’s initial series premiere stats on Paramount Network (2.8 million). Check out the current numbers for the first three weeks of re-airings below:
- Season Premiere (Sept 17) - 6.83 million total viewers / 0.67 18-49 demo
- Premiere's Live+7 Delayed Viewing Average - 7.57 million, an uptick of 10.86%
- Episode 2 (Sept. 24) - 5.00 million / 0.40 demo
- Episode 3 (Sept. 24) - 4.36 million / 0.37 demo
- Episode 4 (Oct. 1) - 4.43 million / 0.27 demo
- Episode 5 (Oct. 1) - 3.83 million / 0.23 demo
Outside of a surprise burst of attention on Netflix, TV shows rarely manage to bring in such a large chunk of new viewers, and this can only be a boon for the Yellowstone franchise’s future. Not that Taylor Sheridan has had any difficulties bringing in upper-echelon stars for his shows — from Harrison Ford to Helen Mirren to Nicole Kidman to Sylvester Stallone — but now that he can prove how successful the show can be across all the TV medium,
So while losing Kevin Costner is an obvious downside for any entertainment property, his future absence is no longer the wildly detrimental setback that it might have been, say, going into Season 3. But considering his exit announcement was balanced by reports of Matthew McConaughey heading up a continuation series that would immediately follow-up on Yellowstone’s core narrative, the pieces were already being put into place to give audiences more A-list entertainers. Now that CBS and Paramount execs know just how big the show can be across various platforms, they sky’s the limit for who may join in years to come. Don’t be so surprised if Yellowstone’s next spinoff stars Rick Moranis, Gene Hackman, Julia Roberts, Mark Harmon, Taylor Swift, The Rock, Bey and Hova, George W. Bush, Brie Larson, Elon Musk, Tom Cruise, Margot Robbie etc.
But on the other hand…
Why Kevin Costner’s Exit Could Still Be A Mess Despite CBS Popularity
The flip side to the above optimism also surrounds the fact that Yellowstone has millions of brand new fans among its ranks. That's obviously a great thing overall, but that means there are now millons more people who will presumably continue watching the drama with the hopes of seeing Kevin Costner's John Dutton ruling the Paradise Valley roost for many years to come, only to realize that the forward momentum completely grinded to a halt in the middle of the fifth season.
Granted, I don't think this will have quite the same affect as all the directly negative feedback that surrounded headlines about Costner and Sheridan's reported feuding. But considering many of use seasons viewers have had six months or so to deal with the reality of the flagship's imminent conclusion, but that'll be new info to a lot of the people just tuning in, which could create something of an echo chamber as new complaints resurrect the same foul feelings shared in the spring.
In the end, though, I think a lot of the messy feelings about Kevin Costner's exit will be swept away easily enough, so long as Season 5's final episodes wrap things up in the most banging way possible, and as long as the next series that follows — whether it's 1923 Season 2 or the 6666 spinoff — has an equally charasmatic and badass lead actor taking charge.
While waiting to see how things shake out, remember to join the millions of new viewers watching past episodes every Sunday night on CBS at 9:00 p.m. ET, with all four and a half seasons available to stream on Peacock.
