Yellowstone is one of the most popular TV shows. What is Yellowstone?
An overbearing father flaunts his vast wealth for all to see. His four children criticize and badmouth each other. Among them is an eldest son who contributes nothing, a second son who is clearly the mistreated heir, a business-savvy daughter who is the father’s favorite (although he never says so), and a youngest son who is a bit rude but is clearly going to take over the family business when it’s all over.
The daughter’s romance with a tall, skinny, goofy guy who has nothing to do with the main family makes for an unlikely comedy duo. The family is torn apart by people who want to tear the family empire apart and swallow it up. Oh, and they spend a lot of time fighting the government.
Does this sound like an accurate description of Succession? Because technically, it is an accurate description of Succession. But that’s also an accurate description of another cable series that’s significantly more popular in terms of viewership: Paramount Network’s Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner. While Succession takes place in the New York media world, Yellowstone takes place on a big ranch in the middle of Montana. Does that make Yellowstone a red-state version of Succession? That’s a really simple statement, so I’d never say it, but if you want to say it, I won’t stop you.
Succession drew a respectable 564,000 viewers for its season three premiere in October. But Yellowstone drew 4.23 million viewers for its own season three premiere in June 2020. (It returns for season four on November 7.) And while the bulk of Succession’s audience comes from streaming—which can’t be measured as accurately as live TV viewership and could make Succession more popular than its live audience—Yellowstone, which also draws some viewers from streaming, is almost certainly more popular.
Often, when I mention all of this to someone who’s millennial or younger, the response is, “I’ve never even heard of this show. Paramount Network? What?” or “Oh, my mom loves that show.” Compared to Succession, a critically acclaimed HBO prestige series whose second and third seasons have become the subject of endless online chatter, Yellowstone has received virtually no attention from Internet television commentators.
