Huge 'Survivor' Ratings a Reality
The Academy Awards came in August for CBS, as 51.7 million people watched an average minute of the two-hour "Survivor" finale Wednesday, a figure that rose to roughly 58 million during the 9:30-to-10-p.m. half-hour, when corporate trainer Richard Hatch was revealed as the $1-million winner.
Tune-in far surpassed pre-broadcast estimates, surpassing this year's Oscar telecast to rank behind only the Super Bowl in terms of programs televised during the past year.
Those results are even more remarkable given that the project nearly ended up on ABC and that CBS' summer-long victory party appeared in jeopardy before it began, after Hatch's arrest in April on suspicion of child abuse--an incident that happened after the program finished taping on the island of Pulau Tiga but more than a month before its premiere.
Sources indicated at the time that senior CBS officials were fearful that the arrest of the program's eventual winner might endanger their investment. There was even some brief discussion, according to sources, as to whether--if the charges turned out to be true--the network would be able to broadcast "Survivor" at all.
CBS quickly came up with the response that they couldn't control contestants' actions once they returned to their regular lives. Privately, network officials also pointed to prime-time stars such as "Home Improvement's" Tim Allen and "Frasier's" Kelsey Grammer, who experienced run-ins with the law without having their programs canceled.
Hatch was arrested by the Middletown, R.I., Police Department for allegedly dragging his adopted 9-year-old son out of bed at 4:30 in the morning and forcing him to jog. Hatch acknowledged during an interview with "Dateline NBC" earlier this week that he had done so because the boy put on weight while he was on the island but denied the boy's allegations he had been grabbed by the ear and had his face shoved into the ground, causing a bruise on his forehead.
The case is still pending, but the child has been returned to Hatch, who filed a $1.5-million lawsuit against the state last month, claiming Rhode Island's Department of Children, Youth and Families had wrongly removed the boy from his home.
The network arranged a conference call on Thursday for Hatch, 39, who also conducted dozens of broadcast interviews, including CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" and "The Early Show" as well as "Entertainment Tonight."
