Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone universe has successfully expanded to CBS, bringing to the broadcast network the big linear viewership the mothership series was known for on sibling Paramount Network.
The Sunday, March 1 debut of the series starring Luke Grimes reprising his Yellowstone role as Kayce Dutton drew 9.52 million viewers (Live+SD Panel + Big Data).
That is CBS’ biggest scripted premiere without a direct or indirect football lead in since FBI debuted on Sept. 25, 2018 with 10.09M viewers. Boding well for its prospects, Marshals exhibited an impressive 99% retention from the first to second half-hour.
Marshals‘ delivery is up from the high mark set by the Season 5 premiere of Yellowstone on Paramount Network, which drew 8.8M L+SD viewers. It also eclipsed the strong September 2024 premiere of CBS’ Matlock, which averaged 7.74 million with a 60 Minutes lead-in that was boosted by a Steelers-Chargers game.
Like Matlock, Marshals built on its 60 Minutes lead-in, which is rare — and it did it by a wider margin than Matlock, 9.52M to 7.21M for 60 Minutes.
Marshals stars Luke Grimes reprising his role as Kayce Dutton as he joins an elite unit of U.S. Marshals, combining his skills as a cowboy and Navy SEAL to bring range justice to Montana. The series is produced by Paramount Television Studios and 101 Studios.
