Survivor Wins Thursday Showdown
Credit: USA Today
Survivor proved the fittest in Thursday's TV duel with Friends. The CBS "dramality" series, set in the Australian outback, won 29 million viewers, compared with 22.2 million who tuned in for NBC's Friends and 19.4 million for the 20-minute Saturday Night Live edition that followed. CBS continued to dominate at 9, when CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (21.3 million viewers) bested NBC's Will & Grace/Just Shoot Me combo (18.8 million).
"We're feeling pretty good," says CBS Television president Leslie Moonves, adding the numbers augur well for Survivor's future.
With a built-in fan base, "I can't believe anybody who watched Survivor (Thursday) isn't going to be back. I think we'll maintain that margin of victory," he said.
The win over Friends marked the first time the seventh-season sitcom has lost to another regular program, and that trend may continue: A third edition of Survivor already is planned for the same Thursday-at-8 time slot beginning in October.
But all was not bad news for NBC: The network had been bracing for a bigger falloff, and while Friends' audience was below average, most of Survivor's viewers came from cable or elsewhere as overall network-TV viewership climbed.
Survivor easily outrated Friends among kids, teens and men. But Friends won the ratings race among 18- to 34-year-olds and beat Survivor in seven of the 10 largest cities, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Moreover, with ER trouncing 48 Hours, NBC remained tops for the night.
"We faced off against the biggest cultural phenomenon of the last decade, and must-see TV survived," says NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker. "None of this came at the expense of NBC."
Added TN Media's Steve Sternberg: "Survivor's greatest impact was on the other networks and basic cable."
The biggest loser was ABC, which saw Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire reach record lows against tough competition and found itself deep in third place.
Some now predict ABC will finish the season that way, a plunge from last season's top-ranked status because of a heavy reliance this year on the fading Millionaire and the lack of any new hits.
"The collapse of ABC is worrisome,"says researcher David Marans of MindShare, a media-buying firm.
On Thursday, Survivor viewers saw the second castaway, Kel Gleason — an Army intelligence officer from Murphysboro, Ill. — ejected after his Ogakor tribemates accused him of hoarding a stash of beef jerky, which Gleason denied.
Clips from this week's installment seem to promise a liaison between aspiring actress Jerri Manthey and Texas auto customizer Colby Donaldson.
