'Survivor' Participants Go for Sponsorships

N E W   Y O R K, Aug. 24 -- — Just when you thought you’d had enough of the rat-eating, conniving, severe-weather-enduring cast of CBS’ phenomenal hit show Survivor, think again.

Although the show concluded Wednesday night with the selection of the final survivor Richard Hatch, you’ll probably have a hard time reading a newspaper or magazine, or watching television and not run across one of the island castaways in the coming days.

Through various product endorsements and TV deals, the Survivor finalists are abandoning their food foraging skills, and instead hawking milk and athletic shoes. Even Survivor losers stand to gain financially from their island adventure.

For those of you who have somehow managed to avoid the hype, Survivor is a reality-based television series in which 16 strangers used their athletic and mental skills for more than a month to get food and not get voted off the island by their peers.

While the final ratings are still to come, preliminary figures had 51 million viewers tuning in to CBS Wednesday night to see Hatch, Sue Hawk, Kelly Wiglesworth and Rudy Boesch in their final showdown for the $1 million cash prize. That makes it the most-watched TV program this season except for the Super Bowl.

Thanks to CBS, we’ll never think of physical stamina or interpersonal skills in quite the same way.

Got Milk?

On the same day as the final season episode Wednesday, the creators behind the “Got Milk?” campaign unveiled their latest installment — the final four Survivor finalists posing behind a tropical backdrop, each sporting a trademark white milk mustache. (For you trivia buffs, the ad photo was shot on a Los Angeles beach a week ago, not on the South China Sea island, where the series was taped.)

Another “Got Milk?” ad featuring the sole survivor is scheduled to debut in newspapers and magazines beginning today.

So did the milk ad creators know who the winner was before Wednesday night?