“Survivor” wins all

Virtually assuring itself the crown as the most-watched TV series of the season, the finale of Survivor II: The Australian Outback took the top spot on the weekly Nielsens last week with a whopping 20.1 rating and a 31 share (representing 36.4 million viewers), despite strong competition from NBC’s Must-See TV lineup of sitcoms, all of which also landed in the top-20. Going head-to-head with a new episode of NBC’s E.R., the Survivo “reunion” show also came out well ahead, the first show to beat a new episode of the hospital drama since the CBS miniseries Scarlett did so in November 1994. Survivor‘s success handed CBS a big win for the week itself as it averaged a 9.7 rating and a 16 share. NBC was in second place with an 8.0/14, followed by ABC with a 7.1/12 and Fox with a 56/9.