Yellowstone's New Season Premiere Breaks Ratings Record

The season premiere of the 'anti-woke' neo-Western drama Yellowstone on Paramount Network racked up a ratings record with 12.1 million viewers watching, reports The Daily Mail. 

The highly anticipated premiere of the series starring Kevin Costner, 67, as the Dutton family patriarch also featured Dutton family tragedy with a car crash and potential problems for the new governor with the neighboring national park and his conflicted son Jamie Dutton played by Wes Bentley.

Yellowstone was the most-watched show outside of the National Football League last year with viewers under the age of 50, beating out all broadcast network series despite airing on the Paramount Network.

The series has been dubbed as 'anti-woke' by some critics and was recognized by the Screen Actors Guild Awards earlier this year with a nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

The series appeared to be at the top of the ratings in all demographics with a 52 percent growth among adults age 18-34.

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 figure was calculated from totals across Paramount Network, CMT, TV Land, and Pop. The premiere was then rebroadcast on all four networks twice on Sunday.

The New York Times referred to the show as 'a conservative fantasy liberals should watch' and a negative review from The Guardian called it 'Game of Thrones set on a ranch.'