Survivor ratings: Season 35’s premiere tops Game Changers’ debut

More than 700,000 extra viewers tuned into the Survivor season 35 premiere over the Game Changers debut, according to the Survivor ratings stats.

It goes to show that a long deprivation from the greatest reality competition show in television history between seasons make the heart grow fonder. The Survivor ratings are in for Wednesday, September 27, and it looks like there’s a huge boost in the viewership of the Survivor season 35 premiere over that of the late Game Changers start this past March.

More than 8.33 million people tuned in to see Ryan Ulrich grab a Secret Advantage, Alan Ball go insane and Dr. Mike get into a confrontation with Tony 3.0 by the name of Joe Mena. You should check out our recap if you’re still interested, as those 8.33 million Live + Same Day viewers were in for an uneven, but enjoyable opening hour.

Those 8.33 million viewers topped the time slot, but Empire remains the ratings king for Adults 18-49 with a 2.4/9 share ratio. The Survivor ratings were 1.8/7, a tad bit up from the 1.7 rating and 6 share from the Game Changers debut. The entire reason why we got shafted with a short episode was to provide a solid lead-in for CBS’ big show of the fall, SEAL Team, which received 9.87 million viewers to win the night.

As always, the Survivor ratings could be fairly worse than where they are and the show would be safe. The low cost of production, the familiarity of the time slot and the (likely) generous Fijian rebates that make filming in the island nation so financially prudent means we’re likely set through to the 2018-2019 television season.

Next: Survivor: Ranking The Best Seasons

Survivor season 35 airs its second episode, “I’m a Wild Banshee,” on Wednesday, October 4 at 8 p.m. ET. We’ll make a note next week about whether the ratings trend up or down after this week’s lackadaisical premiere episode.