Now that the first part of the 2024-25 season has come to a close, ratings reports have begun surfacing online which paint a picture of how well the current seasons of broadcast’s hit series have been performing including Survivor.
Overall, Survivor remains a strong performer in the reality TV genre; however, when you look at the bigger picture the show wasn’t quite a ratings hit for CBS this fall. In fact, the show barely cracked the Top 15 coming in right at No. 15 out of 20 total shows from the network.
Season 47 averaged 5.95 million total viewers across the fall months which is solid, but when you look at the overall numbers for CBS’s fall lineup there were 14 shows that pulled in bigger viewership numbers for the network during the fall stretch. This means that Survivor 47 was actually one of CBS’s least-watched shows of the fall months with the following shows all pulling in more viewers during their fall runs: Tracker (No. 1 overall), Matlock (No. 2 overall), 60 Minutes (No. 3 overall), Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage (No. 4 overall), FBI (No. 5 overall), Blue Bloods (No. 6 overall), Elsbeth (No. 7 overall), NCIS (No. 8 overall), Ghosts (No. 9 overall), The Equalizer (No. 10 overall), FBI: International (No. 11 overall), Fire Country (No. 12 overall), FBI: Most Wanted (No. 13 overall), and NCIS: Origins (No. 14 overall).
Season-to-date, the only five shows that Survivor managed to out-perform in viewership are SWAT, The Neighborhood, Poppa’s House, 48 Hours, and The Summit.
While Survivor 47 comes in at the bottom of CBS’s viewership rankings, it needs to be stated that the show remains one of the most-watched reality TV series on broadcast. The latest season of the show finished the year as the second-most watched reality show of the season with only The Voice on NBC drawing more viewers this season.
Out of the nine reality series that aired in the fall, Survivor took the No. 2 spot overall by just narrowly outpacing Daning with the Stars (5.9 million viewers) which is much better than placing No. 15 overall at CBS among all programs. It’s also worth noting that The Voice, Survivor, and Dancing with the Stars had a commanding lead over their fellow reality TV competitors in the fall with no other reality show managing to clear the 4 million viewership mark in the fall.
For a show that is literally 47 seasons in, it’s not surprising that Survivor might not be at the top of CBS’s most-watched shows list; however, it continues to be a force within the reality TV space and we don’t see that changing anytime soon! Still, it will be interesting to see how the spring season of the show fares compared to Survivor 47’s numbers in the fall.
Survivor 48 premieres Feb. 26, 2025.