The tribe has spoken, and now that his five friendly allies are no longer around, it looks like television viewers are starting to vote Joey Tribbiani off the island.
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According to the final national Nielsen ratings for Thursday, September 16, CBS's premiere of Survivor: Vanuatu, the ninth Survivor series, premiered to 20.06 million viewers and a 11.7/19 rating/share and drew a 6.6/20 in the Adults 18-34 demographic, 7.8/22 in Adults 18-49 and 8.9/22 in Adults 25-54. The performance placed Survivor: Vanuatu first in its 8-9PM ET/PT time period in households, viewers, Adults 18-49 and Adults 25-54, and more significantly, placed the show ahead of the second episode of NBC's Friends spinoff in households (11.3/19 vs. 10.0/17), Adults 18-49 (7.2/21 vs. 6.9/20), Adults 25-54 (8.3/22 vs. 7.3/19), and viewers (18.92 million vs. 15.26) during the 8:00-8:30PM ET/PT time period.
The accomplishment represented the first time that an episode of Survivor had defeated an original episode of Friends or Joey in the 8:00-8:30PM ET/PT time period in viewers since last fall's Novenber 13, 2003 broadcast of Survivor: Pearl Islands. It was also the first time that Survivor bested an original episode of a Matt LeBlanc-featured sitcom in the prized Adults 18-49 demographic since the May 3, 2001 finale of Survivor: The Australian Outback aired nearly three and a half years ago.
Powered by Survivor's strong premiere, a repeat episode of CSI drew the largest audience of any non-Olympic television broadcast since May. Combined with a repeat episode of the season finale of Without A Trace, the performances resulted in CBS defeating NBC's lineup of all-original programming in viewers (19.48 million) and households (12.1/20) and tying NBC in Adults 25-54 (8.3/20) despite Survivor being CBS's sole hour of original programming.