The first Yellowstone-verse series to premiere on a broadcast network has carried on the franchise’s winning track record.
Marshals, a Yellowstone spinoff focused on Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes), drew the biggest premiere audience for a scripted show of the 2025-26 season — and quite a few seasons before that. Excluding shows with football as a lead-in, Sunday’s debut episode had the largest same-day audience (9.52 million viewers) for a broadcast scripted series premiere since FBI topped 10 million viewers in September 2018.
The 9.52 million viewers also puts Marshals ahead of most episodes of its parent show. While the season 5B premiere of Yellowstone accumulated 16.4 million viewers on its first night in November 2024, that number includes an eight-network simulcast on cable, replays on Paramount Network and a special showing on CBS.
More to come.
