Arguably the fall of 2023 has been succinctly different from other years when a fresh new stream of series and seasons airs on giant networks such as CBS, NBC, and the like.
This year, the double strike situation caused a massive conundrum and put a hiatus spell on these anticipated releases. So CBS’s adoption of series like ‘Yellowstone’ from Paramount gained itself laurels and filled in the fall gaps.
As per Variety, the Sunday premiere of Episode 2 of the flagship family drama ‘Yellowstone’ picked up 5 million views on the 9 pm broadcast slot on CBS, putting it ahead of its previous Season performance last year. Episode 2 titled “Kill The Messenger” snagged the top viewership, far ahead of its first time two million views on its inception back in 2018.
The Taylor Sheridan-created broadcast staple, however, dipped 24% below its percentage of views from its first episode bagging 6.6 million views. The rerun premiere on CBS continued from 8 pm to 10 pm on Sunday, the second week of its airing on the channel which stood out as the most-watched series of the same time-slot. The only one that beat the record viewership of Yellowstone according to The Wrap, was ‘Sunday Night Football’ as well as FOX’s ‘Krapopolis,’ a new adult animated series by Dan Harmon that premiered on Sunday as well within the same time slot.
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According to The Wrap, during the first hour of viewing on the CBS network from 8 pm to 9 pm, Yellowstone beat Fox’s Krapopolis, the new half-hour comedy that bagged 2.8 million views on its back-to-back run on FOX. Continuing this analysis of cross-broadcasting channels, we ABC’s rerun of “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” which drew in 1.99 million viewers bagging third place, and finally “Chosen,” on CW which brought in a total viewership of 498,000.
The Warp concluded a similar juxtaposition for the 9 p.m. slot whereby Yellowstone exceeded ABC’s “Step Into… the Movies,” averaging 1.30 million viewers. Fox’s “The Masked Singer,” which drew in 1.28 million viewers followed the trail in the third place, concluding with CW’s rerun of “The Swarm,” which averaged 229,000 viewers.
From the above-mentioned viewership statistics and ratings of the first three episodes of Yellowstone, we can observe that its viewership exceeded those of any other non-sporting shows during the same time slot. However, Hardmon’s adult animated comedy series did manage to knock Yellowstone out of the park on the 8 p.m. slot, ahead of any other non-sporting shows across broadcast channels on the same slot. However, the following hour, Yellowstone was back on top in the 9 p.m.- 10 p.m. slot, again exceeding its previous episode.
Barring this, The Wrap reports that CBS garnered the most views from its 7 pm slot star ’60 Minutes,’ a broad-cast staple with a whopping 7.18 million views. Again, the 10 p.m. show ‘Big Brother on CBS toppled both the episodes of Yellowstone in the previous slot, with a 0.46 rating against a 1.18 rating for Episode 2 and a 0.57 rating for Episode 3 of Yellowstone respectively.
Although it is clear that the new broadcast rerun premiere of the celebrated family show did not knock the earlier week’s ratings on the second week, prescribing it as a linear episode run with two episodes airing back to back has retained much of its views from the audience, with none of the episodes views dipping below the 1 million mark. It is a commendable initiation on CBS’ part and will surely make it to the top of the slot soon enough.