According to preliminary Nielsen affiliate based ratings for Thursday, November 6, Survivor: Pearl Islands topped NBC's Friends for the second consecutive week in total viewers and scored the programs's best ratings performance since its September premiere.
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Survivor: Pearl Islands was first in viewers (21.26 million) and the Adults 25-54 (9.6/23) demographic for the hour while placing second to NBC's double-shot of Friends in households (12.2/19, -0.5 behind NBC) and the Adults 18-49 demographic (8.0/21). Survivor won both half-hours in viewers for the second consecutive week and only the second time ever since Survivor: The Australian Outback aired in Spring 2001. At 8:00 PM, Survivor edged out NBC's original episode of Friends with 20.50 million viewers to NBC's 20.27 million.
Versus a repeat episode of Friends at 8:30PM, Survivor was up +6% in households (12.6/19 from 11.9/19), +12% in adults 25-54 (10.2/23 from 9.1/22), +13% in adults 18-49 (8.5/22 from 7.5/20) and added +1.52m viewers (22.02m from 20.50m) from the 8PM delivery.
This is Survivor: Pearl Islands' best delivery in households, adults 25-54, adults 18-49 and most watched episode since its September 18, 2003 premiere drew 21.50 million viewers.
For those beginning to wonder if, given the ratings performances of the past two weeks, NBC's Friends might be calling it quits just as the program is beginning to show signs of weakening, Media Week's Marc Berman notes that the night's year-ago one-hour episode of Friends averaged an 18.9/27 compared to this week's 15.7/23 (8:00 PM) and 14.3/20 (8:30 PM) overall primetime metered market ratings.