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wednesday, may 5,2004
Viewers eager for season finales
Shows wrapped long ago still lure fans to broadcast
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Our free-and-easy standards for what qualifies as truth were mocked on a recent episode of the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm.
A rabbi invited to Larry David's house for dinner asks if he might bring along a friend, someone he identifies as "a survivor," who would love to meet Larry. After agreeing, Larry decides to try to make the guest feel comfortable by inviting a fellow Nazi camp survivor, his father's chum Solly.
Bat the rabbi's "survivor" turns out to be young, handsome Colby Donaldson from Survior: Outback, who during din-
nere counts the hardships he endured for his 42 days on the show; no snacks; no bathrooms; no footwear by the end but flip-flops.
"Did you see OUR show?" Solly sputters. "It's called The Holocaust!"
Soon they're yelling at each other across the table:
"I'm a survivor!"
"No! I'm a survivor!"
The episode's sardonic message: One survivor is as valid as another (although in some quarters Colby might get extra points for being a celebrity survivor).
Meanwhile, new survivors are always being minted. The latest "sole survivor" will emerge from Sunday's finale of Survivor: All Stars, airing on CBS at 7 p.m. It will be followed at 9 p.m. by a live reunion featuring all 18 of the original competitors (including Colby).
Who will make up the Final Four batting it out for the $1 mil.
lion prize? That is, who will be picked off on the Survivor episode airing Thursday (7 p.m.)? Will it be too-good-to-be-ture Amber Brichk? Oversized Teddy bear Rupert Boneham? Corpone "Big Tom" Buchanan? Chipper mother of twins Jenna Lewis? Or swaggering Rob Mariano?
But that's not the only thing we'll find out Thursday. We'll also learn the destiny of the Friends sextet, thanks to that show's much-anticipated finale (8 p.m.). Will Monica and Chandler get the baby they're longing to adopt? What about the romance between Rachel and Ross? And how will they, Joey and Phoebe cope with their imminent disbandment?
Huge questions. Burning issues. Not that they weren't all settled long ago.
Friends wrapped production in March.
Similarly, the Survivor: All-
Stars contest took place on an island off the Panama coast last November and December. That game was pretty much over for viewers before it began.
Makes no difference. With the unscripted, nonfiction drama series Survivor, no less than with the scripted sitcom Friends, the truth, already history, will be revealed to us under the pretense of immediacy. For us, the outcome won't exist until the show goes on the air. The truth won't exactly set us free. But it will get us to tune in.
A just-published novel by David Freeman has a provocative title: It's All True. How true! Today, "truth" is a malleable, all-purpose label, like "brand-new" or "organic." It coexists too comfortably with lies, while the barrier between them gets more flimsy and porous. Truth is just another pretense at a time when, by one reckoning, "our culture has become a show."
OutKast rapper uses fame to rally voters
The Associated Press
ATLANTA — Andre 3000 of the rap duo OutKast said that when it came to voting, he'd been negligent, but things will be different this November.
"Stuff came up," the 28-year
old, whose real name is Andre
Benjamin, told The Atlanta J
ournal Constitution.
"I was out of town, I couldn't see how my vote would matter. It just wasn't that important to me," he said.
But Benjamin, one of dozens
"I was out of town, I couldn't see how my vote would matter. It just wasn't that important to me."
Andre 3000
OutKastmember
of entertainers taking part in a voting promotion, said he has "realized just how important it is."
"I'm really excited about voting for the first time," the Atlanta native said for an article published yesterday.
Benjamin recently hosted an event for "Declare Yourself," a national nonprofit group that has raised $27 million to try to reverse the trend of a declining youth vote.
In 2000, only 36 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24 voted in the presidential election, census figures show.
That compares with 50 percent in 1972, the year voter eligibility dropped from age 21 to 18.
"Sometimes entertainers — movie stars and rappers — have even more power than politicians. Sometimes all it takes is one or two people in the public eye to get people to vote," said Benjamin.
He and OutKast partner Antwan Patton, better known as Big Boi, have been involved since 2000 with Rock the Vote, a national group founded in 1990 that partners with MTV's Choose or Lose campaign.
NEW YORK — Impressive ratings for NBC's earthquake tale, 10.5, helped the network eke out a victory over CBS in the first week of the important May ratings sweeps.
Earthquake series sets tone of sweeps
The Associated Press
Despite poor reviews, part one of the miniseries about a catastrophic California earthquake was seen by 20.7 million viewers on Sunday.
That was the highest-rated movie on NBC in five years.
The ratings held up for the second part on Monday, drawing 19.6 million viewers.
NBC averaged 12.1 million viewers in prime time for the week, beating CBS' 11.8 million (both 7.9 ratings, 13 shares).
The second-to-last episode of Friends was seen by 24.5 million viewers last Thursday.
NBC easily won among viewers aged 18-to-49, the demographic group it most cares about.
NBC is expecting more than twice as many viewers to show up for the series finale this week.
Hit-starved ABC had a rare appearance in Nielsen's top 20 with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, with 13.1 million viewers.
Last Thursday's edition of Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital drew shockingly bad numbers, though, seen by less than 2.6 million viewers. Powered by American Idol, Fox earned third place with an 8.9 million prime-time average (5.6 rating, 9 share).
ABC had 7.9 million (5,2,9),
the WB had 3.7 million (2,5,4).
Ratings this week
1. CSI: Crime Scene
1. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 26.4 million
2. Friends, NBC, 24.5
4. ER, NBC, 22 million
3. American Idol, Fox, 24.4 million
5. Survivor; All-Stars, CBS, 20.8 million
UPN had 2.7 million (1.9,3) and Pax TV had 950,000 (0.7,1).
NBC's Nightly News won the evening news ratings race, averaging 9.5 million viewers (6.6 rating, 14 share).
ABC's World News Tonight had 8.5 million (6.1, 13) and the CBS Evening News had 6.8 million (4.9, 10).
A ratings point represents 1.084.000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 108.4 million TV homes.
The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of April 26-May
2, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: CSI:
Crime Scene Investigation, CBS,
26.4 million; Friends, NBC, 24.5
million; American Idol (Tuesday),
Fox, 24.4 million; American
Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 22.3
million; ER, NBC, 22 million;
Survivor All-Stars, CBS, 20.8
million; NBC Movie of the Week:
10.5, NBC, 20.7 million; Will &
Grace, NBC, 20.5 million;
Friends special, NBC, 20.2
million; Law & Order, NBC, 17.2
million.
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