Taylor Sheridan’s expanding “Sheridan-verse” is proving to be an increasingly important part of Paramount+’s slate of content. This December may have been a new peak in Sheridan-mania with the latest season of the flagship Yellowstone series in full swing and two new shows having recently premiered. In a single week, both Tulsa King and 1923 featured in the ten most in-demand new series in the US. With a second season of Mayor of Kingstown set to premiere on January 15th, the value of Taylor Sheridan’s body of work to Paramount+ will likely increase yet again this month.
Comparing the demand for shows produced by Taylor Sheridan to other high profile creators we see that he isn’t just on his way to becoming one of the most demanded producers by audiences, he’s already there. In December, the total demand for series he has created or produced was on par with some of the most high profile creators who have been in the game for even longer.
Dick Wolf sets a high bar for other producers to strive for. Total demand for shows from the other producers we looked at was only 50-60% of the huge demand for Dick Wolf’s sprawling body of work. There was only a tiny difference between total demand for shows from Michael Schur, Ryan Murphy, and Taylor Sheridan. Total demand for Sheridan’s shows already surpassed those of Shonda Rhimes and it is easy to imagine how a successful January with the new season of Mayor of Kingstown could vault him ahead of the competition.
The total demand for Taylor Sheridan series on Paramount+ made up 2.9% of demand for the entire platform’s catalog of shows in December. It’s important to remember that Yellowstone (the most popular of his series so far) is available to stream on Peacock but not Paramount+. If the platform brought Yellowstone home to Paramount+ to join the rest of the franchise, the share of demand for Taylor Sheridan series on the platform would have been 4.6% last month.
Here are a few points of reference to give context to that number:
- All Star Trek series in December accounted for 7.9% of demand for shows on Paramount+. Star Trek is arguably the most valuable series IP on Paramount+. If all of Taylor Sheridan’s series were available on Paramount last month, they would have had over half the demand share that the entire Star Trek franchise did.
- On Netflix, the total demand for Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes shows together was 1.9% of demand for Netflix’s total catalog last month. The relative impact of those two creators to Netflix’s total catalog is less than Taylor Sheridan’s contribution to Paramount+’s catalog. Granted Netflix has a much larger catalog, but this still highlights how great of an impact a single creator has on Paramount+.
Even though Taylor Sheridan has already made his mark, that’s not stopping him from continuing to be incredibly prolific going forward. Other forthcoming Sheridan projects include Lioness, which will star Nicole Kidman who will also co-executive produce the show. Land Man will be based on a popular podcast, Boom Town, and star Billy Bob Thornton. 1883: The Bass Reeves Story will be a spinoff of 1883 which itself was a prequel to Yellowstone. A spinoff of a spinoff may seem like overkill but every step toward a more interconnected universe of content is a benefit to Paramount+ and only increases the value of Taylor Sheridan’s work to the platform.
