CBS Announces Two More Survivor Installments

ByABC News
January 11, 2001, 2:05 PM

January 9 -- Although Survivor II doesn't debut until Jan. 28, CBS is so confident in its reality TV franchise that it has just announced plans for a third and fourth Survivor series.

CBS Television President Leslie Moonves made the announcement this morning during the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif., The Associated Press reports.

Locations in Africa and South America are being scouted for Survivor III, which will debut in the fall, network execs announced.

Nancy Tellem, the network's entertainment chief, said that Survivor is too much of a ratings powerhouse to ever again appear on CBS's summer lineup.

To cement the deal, CBS had to agree to sweeten the pot for producer Mark Burnett, an arrangement that was hammered out by CBS pres Moonves, according to Variety. Without going into details, Tellem told the AP, "Certainly this deal will make him richer." Burnett will not, however, receive a cut of the show's advertising revenue.

CSI Gets Post-Survivor SlotCBS also announced that the primo post-Survivor spot is going to breakout freshman hit CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Both shows will go up against NBC's Must-See Thursday night lineup.

In the current issue of Entertainment Weekly, John McNamara, executive producer of ratings-challenged The Fugitive, the current lead-in to CSI, hoped that his show might be granted the golden time slot. "I quietly lie in bed each night and beg God to let us go on after Survivor," he told the magazine. Instead, the Tim Daly man-on-the-run series will be paired up with geriatric (and reportedly doomed) series Diagnosis: Murder Friday nights. Ouch!

Moonves explained to the AP, "The hope is that CSI, which has a younger audience than most CBS shows, will help earn the network a cut of the lucrative movie studio advertising market which is big on Thursday nights."

CBS execs admitted that they still have the Big Brother house wired and ready for a new installment of the show, but that a second go at their much-criticized series would need some serious tinkering.