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), making it the most watched new series premiere of the 2025-26 broadcast season.
That is CBS’ biggest scripted premiere without a direct or indirect football lead-in since FBI debuted with 10.09M viewers on Sept. 25, 2018. Boding well for its prospects, Marshals exhibited an impressive 99% retention from the first half-hour to the second.
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 debut of CBS’ Matlock, which averaged 7.74 million with a 60 Minutes lead-in that was boosted by a Steelers-Chargers NFL game.
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Like the Matlock opener, Marshals, which airs Sundays at 9 PM, built on its 60 Minutes lead-in, which is rare — and it did it by a wider margin than the legal drama, 9.52M to 7.21M.
The Yellowstone spinoff was the most-watched broadcast series of the week, followed by two other CBS Sunday programs: Marshals lead-out Tracker (8.29M) and lead-in 60 Minutes.
Marshals stars 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.
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