The Season 5 premiere of Yellowstone has set a new ratings record for the series with an impressive 12.1 million viewers.
As reported by Variety, 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 12.1 million number was reached by the first episode airing across Paramount Network, CMT, TV Land, and Pop. On Paramount Network, it brought in 8.8 million viewers and was up from 8 million from last year. Across all four networks, viewership equaled 10.3 million, an improvement from the 9.5 million last year.
The premiere was then rebroadcast on all four networks twice on Sunday, November 13, and that helped the number reach 12.1 million and surpass the previous record of 11.2 million set last year. It is important to note, however, that the Season 4 premiere was only rebroadcasted on Paramount Plus.
According to THR and Samba TV, Yellowstone also now holds the record for the top scripted series premiere of 2022.
“After four seasons, the show’s massive audience base continues to impress with its latest season premiere becoming the most watched scripted television premiere of 2022,” said Ashwin Navin, co-founder and CEO, Samba TV. “Yellowstone continues to tap into the passions of a broad swath of viewers throughout the American Midwest hungry for Western-themed genres that have been largely underrepresented on television in recent years.
“Viewership significantly over-indexed for the season premiere within cities such as St. Louis, Cleveland and Pittsburgh and not surprisingly under-indexed in the largely coastal urban centers of San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.”
For more on Yellowstone, be sure to check out how you can watch Season 5, the first trailer for the Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren-led prequel series, and other shows like Yellowstone if you just can’t get enough of a good western.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.