“Survivor: All-Star” didn’t need a post-Super Bowl launch to guarantee huge numbers, but CBS gave it one anyway. That may turn out to be the network’s smartest play of the season.
   CBS considers this eighth installment of the show, which will be airing opposite the last few episodes of “Friends” as CBS fights for the adults 18-49 lead on Thursday nights, critical to the next four months and something that could set up next year.
     Anything CBS can do to knock down “Friends,” which is off more than 20 percent year to year among 18-49s, is a good move. And by perhaps recapturing some of the “Survivor” fans who have wandered back to NBC, CBS has a better chance of doing it.
  Last season’s “Survivor: Pearl Islands” reestablished the series as a true threat to “Friends” after two years of slipping ratings. This year, with “Friends” declining and buzz on “Friends” replacement “Joey” decidedly weak for next year, CBS needs to approach this spring’s Thursday schedule with a cut-throat mentality.
  “The Super Bowl exposure could help kick-off what could be a tough competitive run against the upcoming best-of ‘Friends’ episodes and final originals,” says Susan Hajny, broadcast research director at GSD&M.
   “If the all-star concept works and gets viewers involved, they are more likely to go with the ‘live’ programming that everyone will be talking about tomorrow and record the Friends re-runs for later viewing. After all, they are already in re-runs. “April will be a tougher call.”
   Anticipation for the all-star edition has been building ever since word leaked more than a year ago that CBS was considering it.
   "Survivor: All Star" brings together the most popular cast members from the past seven seasons to compete against each other for the usual million-dollar prize. That means for the first time ever, first-season winner Richard and seventh-season breakout Rupert, among others, will have the chance to match wits and whines.
   CBS clearly didn’t have to spend the post-Super Bowl slot on this show. It could have used the opportunity to showcase an acclaimed but lesser-viewed show such as fellow Thursday occupant “Without a Trace,” Wednesday’s “King of Queens” or Monday’s “Two and a Half Men,” which needs to build its own loyalties since lead-in “Everybody Loves Raymond” may not return.
  But CBS evidently learned from Fox and ABC’s mistakes the past two years, as they tried that approach with “Malcolm in the Middle” and “Alias.”
  “Malcolm” performed decently, averaging 21 million viewers, but “Alias” averaged just 17.1 million, hurt by ABC’s decision to start the episode more than half an hour after the game finished.
   In 1996, a post-game “Friends” became the highest-rated show ever after the Super Bowl, averaging 52.9 million viewers.
  No doubt this is the most-talked-about post-Super Bowl program since 2001, when the second season of “Survivor” premiered with nearly 45 million viewers.
   Media people don’t expect this year’s crowd to be quite that big, but it should well outdistance “Malcolm” and “Alias.”
   “CBS chose Survivor because they know it works,” Hajny says. “CBS did it in ‘01 and 'Survivor' held the best share and audience coming out of Super Bowl than any of the past five post-Super Bowl strategies.
  “The nets either want to showcase one of their best or offer a ‘promising’ show Super Bowl exposure. ‘Survivor’ is definitely on the best list, plus it offers some audience flow (an often forgotten concept in the halls of programming executives) -- male and female appeal, broad age composition and a sports-like or competitive content.”
   Advertisers certainly seem convinced of that appeal. They’re paying about a third of what they would for the Super Bowl, $800,000, for spots. Home Depot, Johnson & Johnson, General Motors and Procter & Gamble, the latter two also Super Bowl advertisers, are among those buying time on “Survivor.”