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"Survivor" winner theory survives the weekend

TV Barn readers have been eagerly trying to poke holes in this weekend's discovery that the name of the winner of CBS's "Survivor" was accidentally posted to the CBS Web site.

Don't worry, we won't spoil it for you on this page. However, if you don't mind learning the winner's name, click here to read a full explanation.

In a nutshell, here's what happened. Sometime, we're guessing, before everybody knew "Survivor" was going to grab America by the throat and not let go, the CBS Web gurus set up a Tribal Council History page on the "Survivor" site. In a separate directory, they created customized, 42-pixel-square mugshots of each of the 16 castaways. Fifteen of those had a red X punched in the corner. (For example, see Sonja, at left.) This indicated they had been voted off the island.

Problem was, the Web masters also put a file with the mugshot of Contestant No. 16 — without the scarlet letter X — in that same directory. Now, this is not proof positive that Contestant No. 16 is the winner. But consider. (1) At the time this Web site was assembled, no one, not even CBS executives, predicted that "Survivor" would turn into the summer's No. 1 hit show. So maybe security measures were a little lax at first. (2) The directory with the 42-pixel-square mugshots exists for one purpose and one purpose only: to supply artwork for the Tribal Council History page. That way, each time a contestant is knocked out Wednesday night, the Webmasters can present an updated scorecard first thing Thursday morning.

But perhaps most telling: (3) As our friend to the North named Caplock was the first to realize, each of the mugshot files in that directory conformed to an identical file-naming pattern. All the images used for the Tribal Council scorecard are named exactly the same way: First name of contestant plus underscore key (_) plus the letters "VH" plus the .gif suffix. (GIF is a format commonly used for image files such as photos.) So what Caplock did was simply start substituting the first names of contestants still on the island and submitting them as URLs to the Web site. One came back without a red X. That person, it would seem, is your "Survivor" champion.

But doubting Thomases among you have argued otherwise. And several have sent me what they believe is evidence that blows away the Caplock theory: Another mugshot of the purported winner, this time with a big shiny red X in the corner. Sadly, as with so many things that appear in the media these days, this "proof" is taken completely out of context.

The contradictory mugshot does indeed exist in a separate directory. That directory is used to supply photos for the Weekly Tribal Council vote tally. But those files do not work with the History page. (Notice that the mugshots on the Weekly page are larger, 69 pixels square, than the ones on the History page. See last week's loser, Gretchen, at left.)

Finally, for those of you who think these kinds of dumb operator errors only happen on purpose — a ruse, if you will, to keep interest in "Survivor" at full boil — one of TV Barn's Swedish readers, Andreas Magnusson, writes in with a sobering note from history:

"I read TV Barn and the article about the CBS Survivor website being 'hacked' with amusement, because something similar happened to SVT, the Swedish broadcaster of Survivor, or 'Expedition: Robinson' as it's called here. But it wasn't a hacker or something like that ... the morons in charge of the website screwed up and the website simply contained congratulations to the winner, who of course was named, while the show had several weeks left. The website was up and running like this for several hours before they noticed it and fixed it."

Pick to click

An auditor tells "Investigative Reports" tonight that as many as 20,000 doctors have made mistakes that put their patients' lives at serious risk. Giving out the wrong prescriptions alone may result in 7,000 deaths each year. Tonight's report, airing at 10 p.m. on A&E, argues that no simple explanation exists for the negligence. It blames, in part, a "code of secrecy" that keeps doctors and nurses from discussing errors. In a remarkable interview, a chief of surgery shows how he made a simple mixup involving two similar-looking vials that nearly killed a patient.

Also tonight, Jeff Probst, the smirky host of "Survivor" — now there's a guy they need to vote off the island — resumes his stateside job as host of VH1's "Rock 'n' Roll Jeopardy." The young-adult version of Grandpa's favorite game show begins its third season at 7 on VH1.

Union files complaint over "Survivor" promos

It had to happen sometime. Somebody in the CBS food chain finally got fed up with "Survivor." Acting on a complaint from CBS affiliate KCTV, the local chapter of AFTRA in Kansas City has filed a complaint with the station's management, demanding that KCTV stop assigning its news anchors and reporters to "Survivor"-related stories and related gimmicks. In one instance that would seem to abolish the line between news and entertainment, the 6 and 10 p.m. co-anchor reads a one-minute promotion for "Survivor" ... during the 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts. The affiliate's general manager says that "Survivor" is a phenomenon and is being covered as such. Even his competitors can't get enough "Survivor," he points out. As for those sponsored "Survivor Updates" — the GM says they were the news department's idea.

Read the story in Saturday's Kansas City Star

On this date...

in 1954, not since Pope Gregory has so momentous a change occurred to our calendars. The listings in TV Guide change from Friday-to-Thursday to the current format, Saturday-to-Friday. Not knowing this change actually toppled a team of contestants on the dearly departed Fox game show "Greed." -- Tom Heald

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