So much for those people who hoped that reality TV was reaching overkill. The Associated Press reports that three of the top four shows in the Nielsen ratings book during the March 3-9 week were reality shows.
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Regaining the top spot was CBS's Survivor: Amazon, with 23.3 million viewers, followed closely by CSI, which airs immediately after Survivor on Thursday. In third and fourth place were the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of Fox's American Idol 2 series. A separate AP story notes that the most-watched show on each of the Big 4 networks was a reality show (the other two being Fear Factor on NBC and I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! on ABC).
Not everything was bright for Celebrity, however. The Motley Fool points out that the low ratings earned by the ABC show were a "humbling fiasco" for its parent Disney; it only led ABC to a fourth-place finish among the four major networks. In fact, these business analysts mock Disney's claims of recent "success" by saying that Disney "has chosen to define success by the same metric that it defines "celebrity" in casting ABC's Celebrity Mole and I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" All we can add is ... Cris Judd? That says it all.