Survivor’s 2000 finale drew 50 million viewers, matching era-defining audiences

Evidence

The show was a hit in Sweden, and when Parsons sold it elsewhere it was renamed Survivor. In the United States, its viewership grew and grew, just as the hit game shows of the 1950s had. When the first season’s final episode in 2000 managed to attract 50 million viewers, matching some of the larger audiences in television history, it was clear that the new mode of content—by this time widely described as “reality television”—was literally ready for prime time. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 839

Categorization

• XREF: Direct comparison to the 1950s game-show boom already analyzed in this book ties reality TV into the recurring pattern of content recycling.