The Survivor 49 finale is coming tonight on CBS, and the night is going to be even longer than we anticipated it to be.
As is often the case, the season finale will be twice as long as a standard episode of the show, with CBS bringing season 49 to a close with a 3-hour finale. The plan was that the finale would end at 11 pm ET, but sadly that isn’t going to happen any longer, and we have an impromptu political address to blame.
On December 17, President Donald Trump will be addressing the nation live from the White House at 9 p.m. ET. As is customary when the President goes live, CBS News will be airing a Special Report for the live address. Typically, when there is a live address, networks will preempt coverage, but that is not the case with the Survivor 49 finale.
The Survivor 49 finale will air on December 17, but will go long for East Coast fans
CBS has confirmed that the Survivor 49 finale will air as originally planned on December 17, but the President’s speech is going to create some major headaches for fans on the East Coast. Here’s why.
The finale will begin at the regularly scheduled time of 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday night. CBS will air the first hour as planned, before the CBS News Special Report will break into the finale broadcast at the top of the 9 p.m. hour with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell and chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes providing live reporting for CBS from the White House.
CBS will then air President Trump’s full address, which will likely be followed by some brief remarks from O’Donnell and Cordes. The Survivor 49 finale will then resume where it left off immediately following the address from President Trump. This is where things get complicated for the East Coast fans.
CBS site’s schedule listings blocked out 22 minutes for coverage of the address with the CBS News Special Report beginning at 9 p.m. ET and then the Survivor 49 finale resuming at 9:22 p.m. ET. Fortunately, CBS was not too far off.
The CBS News Special Report coverage concluded at 9:22, there were then a few minutes of commercials before the finale resumed officially at roughly 9:25 p.m. ET. This means the finale should wrap at or around 11:25 p.m. ET, which is 25 minutes later than usual.
Unfortunately, East Coast Survivor fans are in for a long night, but President Trump’s speech will not impact West Coast viewers. This is because the Survivor 49 finale will air in its entirety without interruption when it airs on the West Coast.