Top > Entertainment > 2006 > October > 2006-10-08

No Race to the Finish

So all along it was about bringing racial diversity into your living rooms. After only two episodes, Survivor abandoned the racial segregation with which it started out with at the beginning of the current season. Producers merged the black, white, Asian and Latino into two mixed groups on the CBS reality show, and the show`s producers are insisting it was by no means a publicity stunt.

The season started out with a racial division, and raised much controversy by doing so. Some New York City Council members accused CBS Corp. of promoting divisiveness and as the days went by, the network finally gave in saying that, yes, it has been planned long ago to merge the tribes and put and end to the segregation, somewhere in the near future.

Despite the opposition and raised eyebrows the show`s theme brought, it had strong ratings all the way through. According to Nielsen Media Research, the three weeks it aired in September brought it an average of about 17.5 million viewers, with a slight increase in viewers ages 18 to 49, the prime selling category for many advertisers.