"Thailand" Outdistances "Nevada"

Turns out, the pastor didn't have a prayer of taking the Survivor title. But while John Raymond, the 40-year-old man of the cloth from Slidell, Louisiana, was the first victim of CBS' Survivor: Thailand Thursday night, CBS was already calling itself a winner.

Raymond got snuffed in a 6-2 vote for apparently rubbing his Chuay Gahn tribe the wrong way, even though it was legal secretary Ghandia who blew the immunity challenge and weakened social worker Tanya who blew chunks throughout the episode due to some mystery ailment (let's cook that shellfish, folks).

The latest batch of marooned backstabbers drew a strong 23.1 million viewers for CBS, easily outdistancing NBC's rerun of last season's Friends' finale and ABC's rebroadcast of its Push, Nevada pilot.

The ratings were off ever so slightly from the first-episode numbers for Survivor: Africa (23.8 million) and Survivor: Marquesas (23.2 million), but CBS touted Survivor: Thailand's demos, saying the show skewed a bit younger than its predecessor, which should keep advertisers happy.

Of course, the real ratings test will be next week, when Survivor squares off with a brand new Friends, the first in what could be the swan song season for the NBC sitcom.

But as for the here and now, CBS can keep clucking. Thanks to Survivor, a new Big Brother 3 and a C.S.I. rerun, CBS handily won the night, averaging 17.1 million viewers.

Survivor: Thailand was one of several key series and season premieres to bow over the past few days--a week before the official start of the fall TV season.

Among the other notables: Fox's Wednesday night lineup of The Bernie Mac Show and the new Cedric the Entertainer Presents and Fastlane did the network good. The second season premiere of Bernie Mac won the 8 p.m. slot with 10.2 million viewers, the series debut of fellow Original King of Comedy Cedric won the 8:30 period with 10.4 million.

The cops-way-undercover drama Fastlane finished second in its 9 p.m. slot with 10 million viewers (behind a rerun of ABC's My Wife and Kids) and did particularly well with the young male demo--aka The Fast and The Furious crowd.

UPN's revamped Twilight Zone also debuted well Wednesday, finishing fourth in the 9 p.m. slot (not too shabby considering UPN isn't as widely available as the Big Four networks). And the network's second season premiere of Enterprise had decent numbers at 8 p.m.

ABC's Ben Affleck-produced Push, Nevada--which drew 12 million viewers to a sneak peek on Tuesday behind the high-powered comedy block of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter and Life with Bonnie--failed to generate much interest in its regular Thursday position. A special repeat of its opening episode at 8 p.m. got slammed by Survivor and Friends, and the second episode, premiering in what will be its normal 9 p.m. slot, was crushed by Big Brother 3 and a rerun of NBC's Will & Grace.

But in a glass-half-full press release Friday, the network found a silver lining of sorts, saying "ABC is already achieving what it set out to do in programming the new show in one of the most competitive hours of primetime...develop a program with a niche audience that is demographically desirable to advertisers on a night when the studios are trying to attract potential moviegoers for their movies over the weekend.

"Presumably, Push will also deliver an upscale audience. In its Thursday debut, Push greatly improved ABC's delivery of Men."

Men delivery aside, Push's numbers were positively dazzling compared to the ratings for Wednesday's Latin Grammy telecast, or as Daily Variety billed it (the ratings, not the ceremony), "La Bomb-a."

The third annual Latin Grammycast was seen by just 4.2 million viewers, according to Nielsen, leading some media pundits to question the long-term future of the show as a television event.

The viewership was way down from the 7.5 million that tuned in for the first awards in 2000 (the 2001 edition was canceled due to the 9-11 attacks), and even worse, the ratings declined steadily throughout the telecast, with only 3.1 million watching in the final half hour, when the three major awards, Record, Song and Album of the Year, were handed out--all to Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz.