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- The Guardian,
- Wednesday June 6 2001
ITV is expected to announce that its £10m letdown, Survivor, is to be scaled back to one episode a week, conceding that the show has failed to live up to the hype.
The show's motto is "trust no one", and it seems that the broadcaster's faith in the viewing public was misplaced as ratings plunged to below 5m. Executives had hoped it would have built to around 10m by now, three weeks into the series.
Not one episode has attracted more than 30% of the available audience; most have languished at around 25%. It has been beaten variously by Airport, Holby City and Ground Force on BBC1. Monday night's episode contributed to ITV's worst peak-time performance this year.
ITV's "banker" shows usually draw around 40%, and smash hits such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire? can pull in half of the total TV audience. Executives, mindful of the bottom line in the battle for advertising revenue, can no longer sustain such a millstone.
The performance of Survivor - which puts 16 volunteer castaways on a desert island, from which one is voted off every few days - has been a huge disappointment: it had been identified as one of ITV's three priorities this year, along with the hit show Popstars and premiership football highlights.
At the moment ITV is screening two hour-long episodes of Survivor a week, on Monday and Thursday at 8pm, presented by the ITN reporter Mark Austin. Each person evicted from the programme is interviewed in separate half-hour shows on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Monday's 9pm show had 5.2m viewers and a 25% audience share, according to unofficial figures, against an average rating of 40% for that slot.
Overall ITV's peaktime share on Monday was just under 30%, the worst this year. By contrast, Channel 4 had its best Monday ever, with a documentary about the Pearl Harbour bombing. Big Brother has also been scoring well with a 19% share - almost double the Channel 4 average.
Too much has been invested in Survivor for it to be axed - it cost £9m to make, plus the £1m prize - and ITV has shied away from shunting it off to a graveyard slot.
