NETWORK Ten will air Australian Survivor for three nights a week starting from next week, news.com.au can reveal.

The scheduling shift — which will see the reality show air Sunday, Monday and now Tuesday nights, with three contestant eliminations per week — is a proactive move in the ratings war against Seven and Nine.

Ten’s Samoa-set series will, on Tuesdays, go up against Nine’s perennial favourite The Block and on Seven, the much-hyped new entry Zumbo’s Just Desserts. While Zumbo opened with big figures on Monday night — more than a million viewers across the five capital cities — many viewers voiced disappointment at the show on social media.

By last night’s second episode, Zumbo had fallen from third to eighth most-watched show of the evening, dropping to 830,000 viewers across the metro capitals. That’s a 23 per cent drop, despite a massive marketing push from Seven.

Ten’s move shows faith in a program that has, since debuting, been beaten in the ratings by The Block on both nights. However, viewing figures for Australian Survivor among the crucial 25-54 viewer age group have been especially strong.

While its ratings have been softer than for Seven and Nine’s offerings, Australian Survivor has generated significant buzz on social media, suggesting its audience may grow as buzz develops further.

Sunday’s debut episode was the number one entertainment program on Twitter during its broadcast, with #SurvivorAU trending at number three on Twitter worldwide and number one in Australia.

Network Ten chief programming officer Beverley McGarvey said: “We very pleased with how Australian Survivor has started. It has attracted solid audience numbers on television and on social media, and produced big increases in Ten’s audiences in its timeslot. The response from viewers has been extremely positive. Clearly there is a strong audience for Australian Survivor and we want to capitalise on that by giving viewers more of what they want.”