The latest news about CBS’ reality hit show “Survivor” has a lot of people wondering if this is another ratings ploy. For its new season, “Survivor” will take 20 castaways to the Cook Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On the latest edition, Survivor: Cook Islands, the 20 contestants will be divided into four tribes by race. The teams are African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic and White.

Host Jeff Probst told CBS News’ The Early Show that it was designed as a unique social experiment.

The idea for this actually came from the criticism that ‘Survivor’ was not ethnically diverse enough,” he said. “Because, for whatever reason, we’ve always had a low number of minority applicants apply to the show. So we set out and said, ‘Let’s turn this criticism into creative for the show. I think it fits in perfectly with what ‘Survivor’ does — it is a social experiment. And this is adding another layer to that experiment, which is taking the show to a completely different level.”

CBS’ has drawn a lot of outspoken criticisms from different groups, calling this move insensitive because it will encourage audience members to identify most strongly with the group that corresponds to their particular race, leading to divisiveness between different cultures. As a result, there have been some advertising consequences for “Survivor.”

Several advertisers from previous seasons have decided they are not planning to advertise this season. Among them are the Coca-Cola, Home Depot, United Parcel Service and Campbell Soup. However, many are stating that their decision “doesn’t have anything to do with the controversy” surrounding the racially divided tribes. However, CBS received its biggest blow when General Motors decided not to advertise on the show’s coming season. GM accounts for approximately one-fifth of the advertising revenue on the CBS reality show this year.

Today, CBS has said they have found another replacement for General Motors Corp.’s advertisements on their hit reality show, but would not name the new sponsors or say if another automaker took GM’s place.

Via / CBS News & New York Times & Media Info Center
Image via / DiversityInc