In November 2023, an ad displayed via the Taboola advertising network showed a photo of actor Kevin Costner and claimed that Paramount Network’s hit show “Yellowstone,” which also aired some episodes on CBS, was being “discontinued.”
The ad read, “Yellowstone Discontinued – Effective Immediately.” However, this was misleading.
The ad led to an extremely lengthy article on the StreetInsider.com website with the headline, “Renewed or Canceled: The Status and Budget of Your Favorite Shows on Television.” The top of the article showed photos of HBO’s “The White Lotus” and Paramount’s “Yellowstone,” and noted that the story was originally published on Investing.com.
The lengthy article listed 224 TV shows and featured around 448 paragraphs. “Yellowstone” was mentioned at number 183 on the list. However, all that the article said about “Yellowstone” was that the first episode in part one of Season 5 would be premiering in November 2022.
In other words, the misleading ad that said “Yellowstone” was being “discontinued” – an ad that perhaps hinted of a recent development, such as the show being canceled for a reason such as poor viewership, meaning that no new episodes would be coming ever again – eventually led to a massive article that provided old news about the beginning of the fifth season that already aired one year before.
Here’s the truth: Part two of the fifth season of “Yellowstone” will be the show’s “final chapter,” according to Deadline.com. Those final episodes are expected to premiere in November 2024, the reporting said.
The reason why these kinds of ads and lengthy articles exist is usually for something called advertising arbitrage. Advertising arbitrage is a strategy in which an advertiser hopes to make more money on ads displayed in a very long article (or a slideshow article) than it would cost to display an initial clickbait ad meant to attract users to the article.