Survivor: Borneo - Reception

Reception

I always believed it was going to generate strong water cooler conversation. Nobody could have predicted the ratings success. But I knew that the premise — a group of people marooned on an island, where they had to survive by working together, and they had to work against each other to win a million-dollar prize-I knew that premise was superior.

Survivor: Borneo received mixed reactions in the media. Bill Carter, a writer for The New York Times stated that Survivor has "clearly begun to emerge as part of the wider culture, with news and discussion about the show widespread on television and radio talk shows and coverage increasing in newspapers." On the Late Show with David Letterman, David Letterman began a segment titled, "Top 10 Things That'll Get You Thrown Off the Survivor Island." During the first season, USA Today held coverage of the show as if it were a sporting event, listing which participant was voted off. USA Today also held a poll to see who viewers would have voted off. With 26 percent, Susan Hawk won the poll, although it had no effect on the game, as Sue made it to 4th place. CBS's The Early Show held an interview with each contestant the day after the episode in which they were voted off aired. By the second week, the show had already gained over 18 million viewers, beating out ABC's show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in ratings. After the season finale, Carter said that Survivor "built over a 13-week run to what was expected last night to be the biggest single television audience ever assembled for a summer television series, far eclipsed every expectation the network had when it acquired the rights to the show last year." Leslie Moonves, the president of CBS Television said that "it has beaten our expectations by about double." The finale of Survivor was watched by 51.7 million viewers, the second-highest viewership of any American television episode during the first decade of the 21st century, exceeded only by the finale of Friends. The finale had higher ratings than the World Series, NBA finals, NCAA men's basketball finals, and Grammy Awards of that year. CBS was able to make the cost of commercial advertisers up to $600,000 during the season finale.

Survivor: Borneo was criticized by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in response to footage showing the contestants trapping rats on the island, initially for fish bait but later for human consumption.

I plead to the jury tonight to think a little bit of the island we have been on. This island is full of, pretty much, only two things - snakes and rats. And in the end of Mother Nature, we have Richard The Snake, who knowingly went after prey; and Kelly, who turned into the rat that ran around like rats do on this island, trying to run from the snake. I believe we owe it to the island spirits we have come to know to let it end in the way that Mother Nature intended: For the snake to eat the rat.

Susan Hawk's "snakes and rats" speech given during the final Tribal Council has been considered one of the greatest and more memorable speeches in the show's history,