The Unexpected Way Kevin Costner's Yellowstone Is Crushing It With Viewers During The Wait For Season 4

Kevin Costner knew a thing or two about critically acclaimed TV before diving into Yellowstone, but even he probably didn't fully expect the consistent surge of popularity the Paramount Network drama would experienced with each season. Yellowstone was already one of the most-watched scripted cable dramas even before Season 3 premiered, and the ratings only got better as the new episodes went by. In fact, it's been two months since the third season's theory-inspiring gobsmacker of a season finale, and as fans await news about Season 4, the neo-western drama is still proving itself to be a huge hit in an unexpected way.

As it turns out, Yellowstone is absolutely crushing it within the world of home entertainment, which includes both DVD and Blu-ray sales, as well as digital rentals and purchases. According to the most recent "Watched At Home" report from The Digital Entertainment Group, which measured through the week ending on October 24, all three Yellowstone seasons appeared in the Top 10 movies and TV shows. That's pretty incredible, all things considered, and oddly enough, Season 1 actually landed higher on the list than Season 2 did.

Let's break this down a little further. For one thing, an additional Blu-ray and DVD sales report shows that neither Yellowstone Season 1 nor Season 2 made that list. (The Season 3 DVDs won't be released until December.). So that means that all three seasons made the Top 10 almost entirely through digital sales and rentals, since the Watched At Home list doesn't count PVOD subscription sites such as Netflix, Hulu, etc. It's definitely worth noting that Yellowstone's sole online streaming home is NBC's Peacock, which has been building up its subscriber base in recent months. So it's almost even more impressive for so many people to have thrown their money at Yellowstone without tapping into Peacock's library.

Yellowstone also sticks out within the "Watched At Home" Top 20 for being the lone TV show, with a variety of different movies surrounding it, from Harry Potter and Back to the Future film collections to more Halloween-tinged features to the romantic drama After We Collided. The Kevin Costner-fronted series is clearly something that people can't get enough of, to the point where those two-year-old Season 1 episodes have been more popular in digital sales recently than any TV show in 2020. Considering how gripped the world has been by pandemics, elections and other life stresses, taking vicarious trips to Montana's big sky country is apparently just the treatment people are needing, even if the Dutton family members' lives are ridiculously stressful themselves.

With Yellowstone doing this well and still building up its audience base as new episodes are currently filming, that big sky is the limit for how popular the show could get when Season 4 arrives in 2021. The drama demolished its own viewership highs with the cliffhanger-filled Season 3 finale, which was watched by over 5.16 million people on the night it aired. That number is already as monstrous as it gets for non-premium cable dramas, and it only got bigger once delayed viewing was added into it.

Check out the full Top 20 "Watched At Home" list below.

It's kind of amusing to see Yellowstone slotted in there between Hocus Pocus and Beetlejuice, two films whose over the top performances stand in direct contrast to Yellowstone's sunlit brooding. That'd make for quite the eccentric (and long) triple feature.

Yellowstone is currently in the midst of filming Season 4, which will make its way to the to-be-rebranded Paramount Network in 2021 at some point. While waiting to hear more casting news and updates about John, Beth and more, head to our Fall 2020 TV premiere schedule to see what else is coming to the small screen soon.