CNN.com - Sci-Tech - Survey: 'Survivor' a big hit for CBS.com

by Chris Schultz

(IDG) -- As "Survivor: The Australian Outback" took over televisions Thursday, so did it conquer the Web. Version 2.0 of the CBS reality-TV smash-hit, a closer-to-Hollywood cousin of the first season -- featuring a fitter, more camera-ready cast -- sent many a viewer to the virtual outback.

The site is organized much like a news site. A ''Top Stories'' section documents the most recent booting. (This week, it's Kel Gleason, an Army Intelligence Officer from Texas. His foible was ''a quiet personality.'') There are features, the most notable of which is the ''Final Words'' section, which allows viewers to read or listen to the remarks of each person voted off the program. And, of course, there's a store (''Design your own Survivor Watch!''), but this is all fluff. The Survivor "Profiles" are the big draw.

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Check out 7-foot-tall Mitchell, a 23-year-old singer/songwriter. Or Kimmi, an attractive 28-year-old: ''Her perfect day would include a trip to the beach, horseback riding, eating many times (a vegetarian, she will not eat land-dwelling animals, only seafood), having sex and watching the sunset.'' (True to her gastronomic m.o., Kimmi refused to eat cow brains, but ate a foot-long mangrove worm during a face-off with the other tribe: ''I can eat a worm! I can eat a worm!'') Or Nick, the Harvard guy who ''has modeled in the past.'' The first things you see about each person (next to a big headshot) are name, age and marital status, then occupation, hometown and the luxury item each chose to bring. (In a spasm of anti-pragmatism, Michael, the president of a software company in Michigan, brought war paint. Jerri, an actor from Los Angeles, chose a bongo drum. Tina, a Nashville, Tenn., nurse, packed a backgammon set.)

This get-to-know-me area is compelling stuff. According to PC Data Online, for the week ending Feb. 3 the number of visitors to CBS.com (which includes traffic to the Survivor site) increased more than 300 percent from the prior week, shooting up to 2,136,000 from 685,000. Page views increased more than 500 percent, from 5.4 million to 27.4 million. Each user viewed almost 13 pages, up from less than eight the prior week. And they're not just breezing through: average time spent on the site per user was more than 25 minutes; the prior week's count barely reached six minutes. Each visitor spent more two minutes per page.

Which pages are most popular? In a separate analysis prepared Nielsen NetRatings (NTRT) , Amber Brkich, the 22-year-old administrative assistant from Pennsylvania, led the pack, with 22.9 percent of the audience scoping her out. Jerri and Kimmi, who entertained 22.6 percent and 22 percent of the audience, respectively, followed Amber closely. (The highest-ranking male was Jeff Varner, an Internet project manager who came in behind six women, with 17.1 percent of the audience visiting his bio page.) David Katz, CBS VP of strategic planning and interactive ventures, said that he is ''bowled over'' by how well-trafficked the Survivor site has been, citing (from internal CBS-tracked stats) 30 million page views during the past week. To keep interest up, they add 20 to 25 video clips a week, live chats with the most recently excommunicated contestant, and when the show's over, they'll air a ''Where Are They Now?'' feature, catching up with the contestants back from the outback. (Will we recognize them in shirts?)

But, alas, there is a stickier Survivor destination than CBS.com, where visitors spend more than the 25 minutes they average at CBS.com. That site is Survivorsucks.com, which rocketed out of obscurity (a place it's been since September) to gain 221,000 unique users and nearly 3 million page views during the week ending Feb. 3, according to PC Data Online. The typical user spent on average more than 36 minutes on the site, presumably to play Fantasy Outback, where the 21,717 members of Survivorsucks.com predict who will get ousted from the show and when.

To be fair, though, the traffic flooding the CBS.com world can't all be attributed to Survivor. The Super Bowl, which preceded the first Survivor episode Jan. 28 on CBS, sent fans in droves to sports sites Jan. 28 and Jan. 29. According to a third digital traffic tracker, Media Metrix, a Jupiter Media Metrix (JMXI) company that prepared an analysis of Super Bowl-spurned Web traffic, 858,000 fans went to CBS.com during the two-day period, a 202 percent increase over the 283,000 average for the same two days the prior three weeks. Superbowl.com, an NFL.com site powered by SportsLine.com (SPLN) (which, you guessed it, CBS owns and runs), had a 378 percent jump during the same period, from 174,000 to 833,000 on game day and the day after. And to round out the top three sites to gain Super Bowl-driven traffic, SportsLine.com picked up nearly 1.15 million visitors, an 85 percent increase over its 622,000 average for the prior three weeks.

Where total numbers are concerned, though, ESPN.com took the prize. On Jan. 28 and Jan. 29, almost 1.4 million fans visited the site for sports junkies, a 32 percent increase over the 1 million average for the same days during the prior three weeks, according to Media Metrix.

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CNN.com - Sci-Tech - Survey: 'Survivor' a big hit for CBS.com

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