Yellowstone, the popular Paramount Network series, made its debut on CBS Sunday night and garnered a respectable viewership.
CBS decided to air the series during its fall Sunday night lineup, starting from the first season, to help bolster its schedule affected by the ongoing strike.
The strategy paid off, as Yellowstone’s two-episode block on Sunday attracted an average of 6.83 million viewers.
This success was partially due to the NFL game earlier in the day, which drew 25.78 million viewers and extended into primetime, as well as the season premiere of 60 Minutes with 11.8 million viewers.
The night concluded on CBS with Big Brother, which had 2.78 million viewers, slightly below its typical Sunday season average due to its late start time at 10:49 p.m. ET.
In comparison, the first half of Yellowstone’s fifth and final season, which aired on Paramount Network in November and December 2022, had an average of 8.21 million viewers.
On CBS last fall, The Equalizer received just under 6.8 million viewers in the post-60 Minutes slot.
On Sunday, NBC’s Sunday Night Football secured a clear primetime victory with 17.86 million viewers, a slight 9 percent decrease from the same week the previous year.
Furthermore, on Saturday, ESPN achieved the highest college football viewership of the season with 9.3 million viewers, surpassing the 9.17 million viewers who watched the game between Florida State and LSU on September 3rd.