50 years after Marshal Matt Dillon’s last draw, ‘Gunsmoke’ is a streaming hit

When the classic western drama “Gunsmoke” finished its 20-year run on CBS in 1975, Los Angeles Times critic Cecil Smith made a bold prediction.

“I have the feeling that the first moon colony we establish will be watching ‘I Love Lucy,’” Smith wrote. “And probably ‘Gunsmoke.’”

We’re not quite there on the colonization front, but Smith’s prognostication on viewing habits is right on track.

“Gunsmoke,” the western drama starring James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon, has twice this year ranked among Nielsen’s top 10 list of most-streamed acquired series alongside more contemporary favorites such as “Family Guy,” “NCIS” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” The program scored 646 million minutes viewed for the week of March 3-9 and 570 million for the week of April 28-May 4.

“Gunsmoke,” which is owned by Paramount Global, was recently added to NBCUniversal‘s streaming platform Peacock. It has also been a staple of Paramount+. But it gets the bulk of its audience from Pluto TV, Paramount Global’s free advertising-supported streaming service.

The enduring success of the series, set in the frontier town of Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, demonstrates how every new evolution of video consumption can unlock the value of beloved vintage titles. Since wrapping production 50 years ago, “Gunsmoke” has never gone away, finding fans on cable (currently on TV Land and INSP), home video formats and retro broadcast TV channels such as MeTV before it was discovered by the streaming generation.

“If there’s a great show, people will seek it out wherever it is,” said Neal Sabin, vice chairman of Weigel Broadcasting, which has carried “Gunsmoke” on MeTV since 2006. The network’s daytime airing of the show regularly attracts more than 600,000 viewers.

“Gunsmoke” started as a radio drama on CBS in 1952 with William Conrad voicing the lead role. The series transitioned to television in 1955 as a half-hour show with Arness taking over as Dillon at the urging of his pal John Wayne, who turned down the role.

“Gunsmoke” became an immediate hit, ranking as television’s most-watched series in four of its first five seasons and expanding to an hour in 1961. It outlasted the wave of westerns that saturated network TV schedules in that era and was still landing in Nielsen’s top 10 prime-time shows in the early 1970s. When “Gunsmoke” was left off the CBS schedule in 1967 — apparently due to rising production costs — the network’s founding owner, Bill Paley, and his wife, Babe, insisted that it return.

Dennis Weaver, left, and James Arness in “Gunsmoke.”

(CBS)

Before “Gunsmoke,” most western TV shows were aimed at kid audiences. “Gunsmoke” was for grown-ups. It was violent and often unflinching in depicting the harshness of life on the American frontier.

The writers and producers of “Gunsmoke” respected the show’s period setting but also had a feel for the times they lived in. Episodes from the first half of the 1960s, which often featured a young Burt Reynolds as a half-Comanche blacksmith in Dodge City, play like allegories about racism as the civil rights movement was simmering.

The show had remarkable consistency as Arness and Milburn Stone, who played Doc, were in their roles for the entire run. Amanda Blake, who played saloon proprietor Kitty Russell, appeared in 19 seasons. (Fans still debate whether the Miss Kitty and Dillon characters were an item.)

Sabin believes “Gunsmoke” may be seeing an uptick in viewing as audiences tend to look to familiarity and comfort during times of uncertainty. “Gunsmoke” also provides a hero with a strong moral compass.

“Matt Dillon represents a lot of what we don’t have right now,” Sabin said.

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Dan Cohen, chief content licensing content officer for Paramount Global and president of Republic Pictures, said he isn’t surprised by the resilience of “Gunsmoke,” as the audience for westerns is deeply loyal, even outside the U.S.

Buyer demand for “Gunsmoke” among international broadcasters has always been strong. The series currently airs in Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Israel.

Cohen said the show has likely gotten a recent boost from the massive popularity of “Yellowstone” and its stable of Taylor Sheridan-created spinoffs, which Paramount Global also sells around the world.

“There is a halo effect that westerns are seeing internationally,” Cohen said. “When we license ‘Yellowstone,’ it leads to the conversation of, ‘Do you have anything else kind of like it?’ ‘Gunsmoke’ is our answer.”