CBS has announced that the special event finale of Survivor: All-Stars will be broadcast Sunday, May 9 from 8-10 PM ET/PT on the CBS Television Network.
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The finale will culminate in the live reveal of the winner from Madison Square Garden in New York City. After the reveal, Jeff Probst will host the program's usual live reunion show from 10-11 ET, also from Madison Square Garden.
This is the network's third attempt at filming a live Survivor finale broadcast in New York City. CBS first broadcast May 2002's Survivor: Marquesas live from Central Park, however the show -- broadcast from a temporary set built on the site of Donald Trump's Wollman Skating Rink -- was beset by extremely frigid weather problems that first resulted in audio quality problems caused by foil blankets distributed to the audience and then by disgruntled audience members who became upset when the blankets were confiscated by production staff.
The network attempted to once again return to Wollman Rink for 2003's Survivor: The Amazon finale (perhaps Survivor producer Mark Burnett and Trump still needed to iron out some issues for their then unannounced upcoming The Apprentice collaboration) but due to rain on the day of the broadcast, the production was moved to David Letterman's small Ed Sullivan theater the morning of the broadcast. In addition to having to scrap an elaborate outdoor set that had been weeks in construction and having to construct a new make-shift indoor set on only hours notice, the move to the smaller indoor theater also resulted in the sudden cancellation of hundreds of tickets to audience members who had been on the network's previously confirmed guest list.
Having had both outdoor telecasts encounter the types of typical weather snags that can be expected when attempting an outdoor production on a East Coast May evening, this time the network has apparently decided to take no chances and instead move to the 20,000 seat Madison Square Garden center.
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Season-to-date, Survivor: All-Stars is averaging 22.62 million viewers, the most watched edition of Survivor since The Australian Outback. From 8:30-9:00 PM, Survivor: All-Stars is first in viewers, households, adults 18-49 and adults 25-54 and is the #4 most-watched series on network television. Survivor: All-Stars also ranks fourth among adults 25-54 (10.2/23) and seventh in adults 18-49 (8.6/22) among all primetime programs.
Survivor: All-Stars is produced by SEG, Inc. Mark Burnett is the executive producer. Mark Burnett and Al Berman will serve as executive producers of the live reunion show.