During the Party, Is CBS Waking Up to Cold Reality?

Broadcasters be warned: CBS is getting a taste of “reality,” and the network is rapidly discovering that while the genre may be cheap, it isn’t always easy.

In the last few days, the network has experienced headaches related to both its summer “reality” programs, “Survivor” and “Big Brother,” with the publication of potentially embarrassing stories.

With “Survivor,” a computer hacker claims to have penetrated the show’s Web site and discovered who the ultimate $1-million winner will be--if true, an astonishing lapse by the network, which has labored to keep that information under wraps.

The material was first posted on the Web site https://www.realworldblows.com by a hacker who claims to be a computer science/physics student in Ontario, Canada. He then sought to take credit on his own Web site, https://www.3dthrills.com/survivor, boasting, “A young man from Canada has done what the hordes of bloodthirsty journalists have all been unable to do!” His formula has since been picked up and repeated by various media outlets.

CBS said it won’t confirm or deny the accuracy of this report or any other regarding the program’s outcome.

As for “Big Brother,” the New York Daily News reported one of the 10 people sequestered in the Studio City location, William Collins, belonged to a group headed by Khalid Abdul Muhammad, a former Nation of Islam leader identified with espousing anti-Semitic rhetoric.

The revelation raised echoes of the faulty background checks conducted on Fox’s “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” special, prompting CBS to issue a statement saying that “Big Brother”--whose episodes are culled from hours and hours of footage--”will not tolerate or permit any hate speech to appear on the program.”

CBS Television President Leslie Moonves had pledged after the “Multi-Millionaire” debacle that his network would be more thorough, saying at the time, “After this happened, I said, go back and do a triple and a quadruple check [on] these people. I want grade-school diplomas.”

All of this tumult may benefit ratings by generating free publicity for the programs, but it has left CBS officials in a near-constant state of alert, with no relief in sight. Not only do “Survivor” and “Big Brother” run through August and September, respectively, but a new edition of “Survivor” starts taping in Australia this fall for broadcast beginning in late January.