‘Yellowstone’ Ratings: Season 1 Premiere on CBS Nabs 6.6 Million

Yellowstone premiered on CBS over the weekend, and even though the show was essentially a re-run, viewers showed up.

The two-hour Season 1 premiere on broadcast television averaged 6.6 million viewers. Hour 1 averaged 7.87 million, while the second hour was a tick under 6 million. That leads all non-sports, non-news programming for Sunday night (Sept. 17), although the competition in those categories was not stiff.

Sunday Night Football on NBC led all shows with 14.4 million viewers (per TV Line) and 60 Minutes was second with 11.4 million. It's a bit challenging to find an apples-to-apples comparison for context, but the Hollywood Reporter points out that the Equalizer drew 6.8 million viewers in the same position in 2022.

• 2.8 million people tuned in for the series premiere of Yellowstone on Paramount Network in 2018.
• The Season 5 premiere on Paramount drew 8.8 million, plus another 1.7 million on simulcast channels.
• Season 1 of Yellowstone will continue on CBS, with back-to-back episodes every Sunday unless there is an NFL double-header, in which case just one ep. will air.

The success of Yellowstone (or lack thereof) is unlikely to have an effect on the show's future, as the second half of Season 5 — the final season — is promised for Paramount Network and then streaming on Peacock.

Additional spinoff shows like Lawmen: Bass Reeves, 6666 and 1923 Season 2 are all promised for either Paramount Network or Paramount +, the streaming service.

This Sunday (Sept. 24), two episodes will air. After Ep. 2 and Ep. 3, fans will be a third of the way through the show's first season. No plans to follow with Season 2 have been announced, but if the Hollywood strikes last into late fall, CBS will continue to need to find programming to fill open slots.