"Survivor" Ain't Winded Yet

Survivor: The Amazon, the sixth edition of the tribal-oriented CBS reality series, and The Simpsons, 300 episodes old and counting, kept pace with young'uns like Joe Millionaire in the ratings race ended Sunday.

Survivor's Thursday season premiere, in which aspiring thespian Ryan Aiken was told to exit--stage left, was watched by more than 23 million armchair adventurers, besting time-slot rival Friends--twice. (Survivor beat both a new episode of the NBC sitcom, and a super-sized repeat.)

Sunday's Simpsons anniversary, meanwhile, was celebrated by 22 million. Two other installments of the Fox toon, broadcast just prior to the 300th, also drew big numbers, averaging 18.2 million.

The, pardon the expression, venerable Married...with Children proved it can still keep fannies in the La-Z-Boys, too. More than 19 million Bundy backers watched Sunday's hourlong reunion special, as aired on Fox.

Of course, with due respect to the above players, and their Top 10 finishes, if you want real eye-popping numbers, not to mention advice on how to cut a two-by-four, you go see Joe Millionaire.

Monday's finale was, as has been noted, watched by lots and lots and lots of people who should know better. (An estimated 29.3 million for the first hour's series recap; an estimated 40 million for the final hour's non-shocking twist, in which outed construction worker Evan Marriott and his chosen love, Zora Andrich, were presented with $1 million.)

Those record-breaking stats--making for Fox's highest-rated show ever (excluding Super Bowls)--will be reflected in next week's standings. In this week's, Fox has to live with the "mere" 24.1 million who watched last week's next-to-last episode.

Overall, Fox shows hogged up half of the Top 10, from Joe Millionaire (second place) to American Idol (Tuesday's episode--eight place, 20 million viewers). Idol's Wednesday installment, which saw Kimberly Locke and heavyweight Ruben Studdard voted into the pop-making machine's finals, finished 11th, with 18.7 million viewers.

CBS actually took the title as the most-watched network of the week--the latest leg in the all-important February sweeps. Led by CSI (first place, 27.2 million), the Eyeball's shows were eyeballed, on average, by 13.6 million viewers. NBC, which saw ER (seventh place, 20.6 million) take its medicine and fall behind CSI, finished second, with 12.3 million viewers. Fox held strong in third, with 11.9 million viewers.

Fourth-place ABC (9.9 million viewers) placed just two shows in the Top 30--The Bachelorette (17th place, 17.1 million) and the Matthew Broderick-led redo of The Music Man (28th place, 13 million).

The season finale of ABC's Celebrity Mole Hawaii, in which supermodel Frederique was revealed to be the dirty rotten double agent, got a nice sendoff, bringing the struggling network 12 million viewers, good for 35th place.

A leering Lorenzo Lamas did what he could to help ABC. The onetime Falcon Crest stud was among the judges who sat in, well, judgment of scantily clad types in the latest reality show extravaganza, Are You Hot?: The Search for America's Sexiest People. If the show's 52nd place finish and 10 million viewers don't impress you, then you don't work at ABC, and don't remember when approximately nobody tuned in to see Push, Nevada on Thursday nights.

ABC launches its latest would-be ratings gambit Wednesday in the form of I'm a Celebrity--Get Me Out of Here!. The show, to air nightly through March 5, debuts following the two-hour season closer of The Bachelorette. E!'s Melissa Rivers and J. Lo's latest ex, Cris Judd, are among the 10 names who will vie for TV viewers' love, while trying to make the best of their jungle environs.

Elsewhere, UPN, which finished behind the WB, 3.5 million viewers to the Frog's 4.5 million, is looking at being redesignated a "limited network" by the ratings watchers at Nielsen Media Research.

The home of WWE Smackdown! announced this week it plans to drop its weekday afternoon kids' lineup come August. The move would reduce the number of hours UPN programs each week to just 13. Per Nielsen, a network must broadcast at least 15 hours to be considered a regular ol' network (a la, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, the WB, or even lowly Pax).

In Daily Variety, UPN downplayed the significance of the pending reclassification, saying its overall programming would be unaffected. (Exhale, Smackdown faithful.)

Here's a rundown of the 10 most-watched shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:

1. CSI, CBS, 27.2 million
2. Joe Millionaire, Fox, 24.1 million
3. Survivor: The Amazon, CBS, 23.3 million
4. The Simpsons (8:30 p.m., Sunday), Fox, 22 million
5. The Simpsons (8 p.m., Sunday), Fox, 21.3 million
6. Friends (8 p.m., Thursday), NBC, 20.9 million
7. ER, NBC, 20.6 million
8. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 20 million
9. Married...with Children Reunion, Fox, 19.2 million
10. Friends (8:33 p.m., Thursday), NBC, 19.1 million