Word: survivor
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...where I'm going here? Isn't a close, albeit low-scoring game better than three quarters of "I'm going to Disneyworld?" If that's the case, why is everybody treating this year's game as just a four-hour wait before the premier of Survivor...
...other hand, is ready to ingest S2 revenue through every conceivable orifice. The first Survivor was an advertisers' bargain, with most ads sold in advance for far less than the ratings would have commanded. Now it's time to back up the money truck. S2 is reportedly getting more per ad than ER, the reigning revenue champ--all for a show that has never aired in the regular season. And as on the past Survivor, in which contestants quaffed Bud Light and used an Ericsson phone, there will be product placements from the likes of Reebok, Doritos and Target...
...greatest potential prize is the head of Jennifer Aniston. CBS daringly slotted its hit against longtime NBC hit Friends, hoping to bolster its own schedule and cripple TV's most successful slate for its rival. "When you have a weapon like Survivor, you use it," says CBS-TV president and CEO Leslie Moonves. Analysts like Survivor's chances. Says Guy McCarter, senior vice president and director of entertainment marketing for media buyer OMD USA: "Friends will take a hit." Many viewers, he suspects, will tape it and watch S2, a blow to the sitcom's value...
...counter with celebrity stunt casting on Friends and lineup changes. But it will be a bloody good fight, not just for ratings but possibly for the future direction of TV. Friends--a scripted hit with actors who get more expensive with every contract--is the old-line antithesis of Survivor, a moneymaking machine with disposable stars and no writers. (Even its product placements may be a sign of TV's future, when digital video recorders could allow viewers to skip traditional commercials...
...looming writers' strike hits this summer, some of the cheap reality shows likely to fill the airtime could stay on after the strike ends, especially if Survivor demonstrates the genre's viability. That may also depend on the continued success of a wave of just-debuted knock-off reality shows that began last week (see boxes)--not unlike the game shows that, exactly this time last year, assumed it would be easy to mimic Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Say, what time is Winning Lines on anyway...