Tuesday 15 November 2022 04:26 AM Yellowstone's new season premiere breaks rating record with 12.1m viewers ... trends now
The season premiere of the 'anti-woke' neo-Western drama Yellowstone on Paramount Network racked up a ratings record with 12.1 million viewers watching.
The highly anticipated premiere of the series starring Kevin Costner, 67, as the Dutton family patriarch also featured Dutton family tragedy with a car crash and potential problems for the new governor with the neighboring national park and his conflicted son Jamie Dutton played by Wes Bentley.
Yellowstone was the most-watched show outside of the National Football League last year with viewers under the age of 50, beating out all broadcast network series despite airing on the Paramount Network.
The series has been dubbed as 'anti-woke' by some critics and was recognized by the Screen Actors Guild Awards earlier this year with a nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.
Season premiere: John Dutton was sworn in as the Governor of Montana and enacted drastic measures to stop an airport project and curb development on Sunday's explosive season five premiere of the 'anti-woke' neo-Western drama Yellowstone on Paramount Network
The season premiere of the 'anti-woke' neo-Western drama Yellowstone on Paramount Network racked up a ratings record with 12.1 million viewers watching
The series appeared to be at the top of the ratings in all demographics with a 52 percent growth among adults age 18-34.
The 12.1 million viewers who tuned into the premiere of Yellowstone Season 5 is up from the previous record of 11.2 million set by the first episode of Season 4.
The figure was calculated from totals across Paramount Network, CMT, TV Land, and Pop. The premiere was then rebroadcast on all four networks twice on Sunday.
The show has been a runaway success for Paramount Network which is something of a niche cable channel.
The series - which has been dubbed 'anti-woke' by some critics - was finally recognized by the SAG Awards earlier this year, but remains completely unloved by the Emmys, with some suggesting it's due to the perception of the show as conservative.
The New York Times referred to the show as 'a conservative fantasy liberals should watch' and a negative review from The Guardian called it 'Game of Thrones set on a ranch.'
It's a far cry from when, just six years ago, the New York Post dubbed the Sheridan-written Jeff Bridges film Hell or High Water as being 'almost undone by its
