Yellowstone, the hit cowboy drama on Paramount Network, returned for its fourth season on Sunday. The double-episode premiere revealed who survived last year’s cliffhanger finale – an episode that drew the biggest audience of any scripted TV show on cable in 2020.

or people who want to catch up on past seasons or stay up to date on new episodes as they beat, streaming service Outstanding plus seems to be the natural place to turn. 

But contrary to intuition, the one TV show most associated with the Paramount name is nowhere to be found Outstanding plus.

If you want to consume Yellowstone’s back catalog, you have to switch to rival Paramount Plus peacock, which has an exclusive deal to be the only subscription streaming service for the first three seasons.

 If you want to stream the new episodes of Yellowstone, you have to try to unlock the Paramount network App, not Paramount Plus. And after season four is over, that whole bunch of new Yellowstone episodes will move to a subscription streaming service – but it will be Peacock again.

Confusing as this is, it is by design. Yellowstone isn’t the only high-profile ViacomCBS title missing from Paramount Plus and streamed elsewhere: if you’re looking for Comedy Central’s South Park then you have to stop by HBO max, for example.

Content licensing is big business for ViacomCBS, as is the revenue generated by a hit show on a traditional cable network like Paramount Network.

ViacomCBS has bet that some top notch programs can make more money – and get more exposure – if they’re available in a location other than Paramount Plus, even if that means a big Paramount show like Yellowstone isn’t on Paramount Plus at. is empty.