Kevin Costner’s ‘Yellowstone’ sets viewership milestones

NEW YORK » Kevin Costner’s Paramount epic “Yellowstone” reached 12.1 million viewers for the opening night of its fifth season on Sunday, the most popular scripted series episode so far in the new television season, the Nielsen company said.

That it was a cable network series — instead of a big broadcaster like CBS, NBC or ABC — makes the achievement that much more impressive.

The total viewership involved a little trickery: the show simultaneously aired on Viacom networks CMT, TV Land and Pop, and there were some same-day reruns. Even with that, there were 9.4 million viewers who saw the premiere episode on Paramount alone.

“We’ve been able to create a show that didn’t start out being popular but did it on its own terms,” Costner said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.