There was a time Jeff Probst could not imagine doing what he will on Wednesday, being on hand as host for the start of a 44th season of Survivor. That’s not simply because of the transitory nature of television, where a 44th season of anything is a rarity, even a program that created a sensation when it first aired on CBS in the summer of 2000.
CBS on Tuesday afternoon announced renewals for NCIS (aka broadcast’s most-watched drama), CSI: Vegas, The Amazing Race and six other series. The other programs that got the nod to return for the 2023-24 TV season are 60 Minutes (TV’s most-watched news program), the sophomore procedural NCIS: Hawa’ii, Survivor, Tough as Nails, Lingo and the true crime docuseries 48 Hours.
CBS is getting its business done early with a raft of renewals including its stable of reality shows. Survivor, The Amazing Race, Tough As Nails and Lingo are all returning for new seasons. Survivor, The Amazing Race and Tough As Nails were expected but the return of Lingo for a second season comes only a month into its RuPaul-fronted run.
The network has also picked up Tough as Nails and Secret Celebrity Renovation for the 2022-23 season.
Survivor, which rung in Season 41 with a two-hour premiere, drew in a 1.0 demo rating and 6.02 million viewers, per fast nationals. The competition series returned after a 16-month break with a set of fresh-faced contestants looking to boast their skills at in the Mamanuca Islands of Fiji. Survivor slipped from its pre-pandemic premiere in February 2020 (1.3, 6.68M).
Exclusives
Survivor has been one of the most challenging shows to get up and running during the Covid-19 pandemic but season 41 is finally moving into production. Host and exec producer Jeff Probst revealed that the team is returning to Fiji to start shooting — a year after initially hoping to do so.
Survivor will no longer be part of CBS’s fall schedule as a result of the COVID-19 production shutdown as S.W.A.T moves up from midseason as part of the network’s rejig. Producers had hoped to get Survivor up and running to hit the fall deadline, but will not make it in time.
A week after the surprise removal of Survivor contestant Dan Spilo, CBS and the show’s producers are speaking out about the incident for the first time. In a very lengthy statement, the network and the show call Season 39 “unprecedented.” Starting with the show’s next season (40), Survivor is adding to the cast’s pre-production orientation specific guidelines regarding personal space, inappropriate behavior and how to report these issues.
The abrupt exit of player Dan Spilo, for what CBS said was an off-camera incident, didn’t end questions about whether the network fumbled a #MeToo-era issue that it knew about months ago. CBS has the chance to address its decisions Wednesday, when it airs the traditional one-hour post-mortem discussion after the season’s conclusion. Spilo has not been invited to participate. For the first time, that post-show discussion will be taped instead of live.
GARDENA, Calif. (AP) — A former reality TV show producer convicted of killing his wife is back home in Southern California after his release from a Mexican prison. KTLA-TV says former “Survivor” […]
The reality show, beginning its 16th year on the air, has managed to keep drawing a steady number of viewers, even as its contemporaries have faded.
Whether you love unscripted television or consider it the downfall of western civilization, you can pinpoint the exact date when the broadcast landscape changed forever: Fifteen years ago — May 31, 2000. That’s when a bold new reality TV experiment named Survivor debuted on CBS — 16 individuals stranded on an island in Borneo for 39 days, voting each other out one by one until only two remained. One of those two would be voted the winner of $1 million.
Survivor premiered on CBS on May 31, 2000. The extreme success of the show officially led to an explosion in the reality TV genre as networks realized the potential gold mine of a programming that was cheaper to produce than scripted shows. Even more amazingly, Survivor endures 15 years — and 30 seasons — later. So, what’s super-producer Mark Burnett’s secret?
A day after the Motion Picture Editors Guild notified the producers of CBS’s Survivor that its editors wanted a union contract, the postproduction crew today walked off the veteran Mark Burnett reality show.
Big audiences for CBS’s Survivor and the second half of Fox’s American Idol lead to a ratings tie between the networks Wednesday night.
The show will return for its 29th and 30th cycles during the 2014-15 season with Jeff Probst returning as host.
CBS Entertainment named Mitch Graham VP alternative programming Tuesday. With the new title, Graham will oversee CBS’s lineup of reality franchises, including Survivor, The Amazing Race, Big Brother and Undercover Boss. […]
CANCUN, Mexico — A U.S. reality television producer has repeated his claims of innocence during a court hearing on the death of his wife at a Mexican resort in 2010. […]
CBS has ordered two more cycles (No. 25 and 26) of its long-running reality franchise to air during the 2012-13 season. The 24th edition will premiere Wednesday, Feb. 15.
‘Survivor’ Finale Muscles Out ‘Housewives’
The two-hour Survivor finale averaged a 4.0 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., down 2% from last fall’s finale, which averaged a 4.1. The Survivor reunion show that followed averaged a 3.5, up slightly from a 3.4 for last fall’s reunion special. It propelled CBS to an easy victory on the night opposite the seventh-season finale of ABC’s Desperate Housewives, which slid 25% from last year, from a 4.0 to a 3.0.
LOS ANGELES (AP) – U.S. Justice Department officials say former “Survivor” reality television producer Bruce Beresford-Redman should be extradited to Mexico to stand trial for the killing of his wife […]
Survivor villain Russell Hantz has been outed for allegedly leaking secret information about the show that was then posted online. Jim Early, who was sued last year by producer Mark Burnett and CBS, says Hantz was his source for spoiler info about Survivor: Samoa and Heroes vs. Villains — which Early then posted under the screen name “missyae” on survivorsucks.com.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A reality TV producer charged with killing his wife in Mexico will not be released from a Los Angeles jail while he fights extradition, a federal […]
