Report: ‘Yellowstone’ TV series meant $70M for Montana economy in one year

By David Erickson

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    MISSOULA, Montana (Missoulian) — Fake Hollywood cowboys have translated into piles of very real cash for western Montana.

A single season of the hit television series “Yellowstone,” starring Kevin Costner and filmed in and around Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley, brought in over $70 million in additional spending to Montana.

That’s according to a study conducted by the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research. The series filmed its first three seasons mostly in Utah, but the Paramount Network decided in 2020 to move the show’s filming to Montana to take advantage of a new $10 million film tax credit made available by the Montana Legislature.

According to the study, during five months of filming in western Montana, the production added 527 permanent jobs in the state, not including the 624 Montana residents who found jobs as extras on set and made a combined total of about $300,000. Last week, the show put out a call for extras for the filming of another season in and around Missoula.

“The production activities of ‘Yellowstone’ season four in Montana supported jobs and income well in excess of its own economic footprint, making Montana’s economy larger and more prosperous than it otherwise would have been,” said Patrick Barkey, the director of the Bureau. “The high-paying nature of the production-related jobs, and the considerable demand for locally produced goods and services, are the main reasons why the economic impacts were so sizable.”

The economic impact included $25.3 million in annual personal income for Montana households and $85.8 million in additional gross receipts for Montana businesses and organizations. The state government’s revenue was $10.6 million higher than it would have been without the show, Barkey said.

He said his researchers had access to an extraordinary amount of financial documentation from Paramount. He noted that many tourists visited Montana specifically because they’d seen the show.

“The numbers are pretty astonishing,” he said. “It’s a fairly sizable impact. The implication is this level of economic output would continue as long as the production continues in Montana.”

The 116 Montana residents who worked on the show, not including extras, made a combined $3.1 million in wages. Those jobs paid an average of about $66 per hour, but they were not year-round jobs.

The study was paid for by the MEDIA Coalition of Montana and the Paramount Network, both organizations that have a vested interest in seeing states offer higher tax credits for the film industry.

“We felt it was important to have accurate data as to the impacts of the media industry in Montana,” said Steve Grover, CEO of Montana Studios and co-founder of the MEDIA Coalition of Montana.

More than 30 states, including Montana, currently offer some form of tax credit to studios in return for locating activities within their states. Montana’s Legislature raised the cap from $10 million to $12 million in 2021, but film industry proponents had wanted the cap raised to as much as $250 million.

A representative from Paramount Network told state lawmakers on Monday that “Yellowstone” has utilized about $16 million worth of the state’s film tax credits, spread out over several years.

About 122 productions were filmed in Montana in 2019, and some of those films qualified for a tax credit.

A company called ShadowCast Partners, LLC had intended to build a $20 million film production facility in Missoula in a county-owned industrial park in 2021. The company bought the land but halted construction of the studio after the Montana Legislature shot down a bill that would have removed the cap on film tax credits in the state.

House Minority Leader Kim Abbott, a Democrat from Helena, was against raising the credit because she said she believed that the film industry was forcing states to compete against each other. Other state lawmakers thought the tax credit would have been a good financial investment.

Emily Brock, Missoula County’s director of economic and land development, said ShadowCast has now leased part of their property to a company that operates long-haul electric trucks.

“ShadowCast was going to build a film production studio, but when the Legislature decided not to expand the tax credits, their investors and partners walked away from the deal,” Brock said. “We thought the film studio would have been a good fit for Missoula’s arts culture.”

In Missoula, all kinds of businesses have benefited from “Yellowstone” filming here, from local restaurants to glass companies to the city.

Lynn-Wood Fields, owner of the Montana Media Center, said Paramount spent lots of money on everything from lodging to rental cars to veterinary and animal services.

“The business we got from ‘Yellowstone’ really helped our bottom line,” Fields said.

Almost every region in Montana has experienced a significant increase in housing prices since the start of the pandemic. The report did not touch on the direct impact the show had on the desire for out-of-state residents to purchase homes here, but the report’s authors did mention that the show put Montana in the spotlight.

“A second kind of indirect impact comes from the public relations value of having a television series distributed to a global audience that uses Montana as an integral part of the story,” the report states. “The imagery, the culture, and the characters of the show feature Montana and add to its desirability as a visitor destination.”

“A no-Yellowstone scenario for the state economy removes that potentially important messaging. We do not attempt to quantify or incorporate this impact in the analysis.”

To read the full report visit online at bber.umt.edu.

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