Now in its 17th season, Survivor – the first highly-rated reality series, considered the mother of American reality shows – might be worried about its own survival. This year’s premiere was the lowest rated in the series’ history. Airing on Thursday, September 25th, the episode introduced the castaways to the West Central African nation of Gabon. In 2004, ratings spiked as over 33 million viewers tuned in for the premiere of Survivor: All-Stars. Since then the show has bled 20 million viewers and seems desperately in need of a shakeup … or at least some controversy. For airing frontal male nudity, CBS’s Survivor: Gabon (Thursday, 8:00 p.m.) has been named Worst TV Show of the Week.
The peepshow aired in the second half of the two-hour premiere, when a male contestant ran across the field during an immunity/reward challenge -- unaware that his “exiled member” had briefly been liberated from his boxers. Though the shot was quick, it was clearly visible. And in the age of HD, digital video recorders, and high-speed internet, it quickly became immortalized as an unending slow-motion loop on numerous blogs.
CBS responded to the FCC complaints filed by the PTC by asserting that the incident was unintentional and “fleeting.” But for a show famous for what some viewers have dubbed “gratuitous blurring” of anything remotely objectionable – too much breast, a tuft of pubic hair, a curious bulge – it is hard to believe that this was unintentional. In fact, it appears to be part of a pattern.
Since the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the FCC’s ruling against CBS for airing Janet Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction, the network has been slyly testing the limits of fleeting obscenities. In August of this year, CBS dropped an uncensored F-bomb during an episode of Big Brother 10 (surprise, surprise -- another sagging reality show). It is interesting to note that no such uncensored incidents have occurred on other networks.
CBS has since pulled the offending Survivor clip from of its website and has blurred the image in the full online version of the episode. But in the short-term this cynical ploy had generated much buzz. By the following morning, the man’s ***** was the fourth-most-popular search according to Google’s “Hot Trends.”
If this trend continues, who knows what stunts CBS will pull whenever it needs to gin up interest in its shows? Perhaps someone ought to inform CBS that viewers generally do not want to watch broadcast television if they must constantly worry about genitals flopping across their screens.
For airing uncensored male nudity, CBS has been named Worst TV Show of the Week.
) I'm not sure what the big deal is. I guess if I had a 54" widescreen it might be. 
