NBC's Fear Factor continued its Fall 2003 ratings growth this week, despite the much-hyped premiere of FOX's The Next Joe Millionaire. Fear Factor outscored the deeply disappointing premiere of the Joe Millionaire sequel by a 59 percent margin among adults 18-49 and 5.2 million viewers overall.

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According to updated in-home viewing figures from Nielsen Media Research, Fear Factor (5.1 rating, 14 share among adults 18-49, 11.9 million viewers overall) won the 8-9 PM ET hour in virtually all key demographics and total viewers.

Heading into this week, Fear Factor was the fastest-growing network reality series this fall versus year-ago 18-49 results, up 17 percent (with a 5.6 rating vs. last year’s 4.8). ABC’s The Bachelor is down 2 percent this fall (5.7 vs. 5.8) and CBS’ Survivor is down 15 percent (7.5 vs. 8.8). In overall total viewers, Fear Factor was up 20 percent going into last night (with 13.1 million viewers vs. last year’s 10.9 million) while The Bachelor is down 1 percent (12.0 million vs. 12.1 million) and Survivor is down 9 percent (19.7 million vs. 21.8 million).