Survivor 50: Creator Charlie Parsons Always Knew It Would Be Big | Television tonight

EXCLUSIVE:

The very first spark of what would eventually become Survivor was a 10-minute segment called ‘The Castaways’ in 1998 on a British youth magazine show, Network 7.

The show’s producer, Charlie Parsons, who had the idea of ​​sending four celebrities to Sri Lanka without all the comforts, heralded the beginning of a reality TV giant.

“I was making TV programs in Britain. Programs that people talk about. I was doing a magazine show on a Sunday morning, a show with a lot of different things in it, but it was fundamentally journalism,” he says. Television tonight.

‘It was quite a controversial show on Sunday in Britain… for example, on another episode of the show we had a live link from Death Row in Louisiana, and I can’t quite believe I was doing it now, but we did this and asked, ‘Do you think this man should live or die?’

“Out of nowhere the idea came: ‘Why don’t we send some people to a desert island and see how they do?’ We sent four minor celebrities to this desert island, which had no special (format) structure, and followed them for two weeks. One was a soap star on television here in Britain, one was a stockbroker, a tennis star and one was an ex-criminal.”

Parsons, who had ambitions to create formats for his own production company, felt the concept had legs and developed the idea further into To survivethe original title. Reality TV was still in its infancy at the time, led by MTVs Traffic rules as observation television.

Cover of the original pitch document

ABC US put some money into development, but Parsons recalls that there was widespread reluctance in several areas to adopt a reality show with competition.

“I couldn’t get anyone in Britain to buy it. People said things like, ‘Can you just make it into a documentary?’ But I was young and ambitious and passionate, and I didn’t plan on doing it as a documentary. I knew it had to be a show with a long run. ITV in Britain asked: ‘Can we run it as a two-hour special?’ And I said, ‘No, that’s not going to work,'” he insisted.

During this period in LA he met producer Mark Burnett, a fellow countryman, at a party, who was enthusiastic about the concept – the beginning of a long conversation in which Parsons repeatedly denied him licensing rights.

After two years, ABC’s rights reverted to Parsons, whose Bible document was now so extensive that he took it to Cannes, where Swedish producer SBS and Swedish production company Strix Television showed interest.

In 1997 it debuted in Sweden as Expedition Robinson. Many lessons were learned in that first season in Malaysia.

“We really starved them during the first Swedish version, and that wasn’t a good idea because people on the show started chasing around the crew’s trash cans! We didn’t get the balance quite right because we’d never done reality before.”

But the hallmarks of the show were there: stranded contestants, challenges, tribal mergers, a tribal council, one winner.

Meanwhile, Mark Burnett was still hungry for an American version, while Parsons found the US a challenge.

“I had a really bad year making a not-great show in America because I couldn’t deal with the talent. It was quite depressing… When I was running my own company in Britain I was the king of the castle, but I found it very difficult to be in meetings about why some things weren’t working… I thought, ‘I don’t know if I want to produce (‘)To survive) no more,’” he recalls.

“When Mark’s phone call came in regularly saying, ‘Can I get a license for it?’ I said, ‘Oh, okay, maybe that will work.’

It would prove to be a stroke of luck for everyone if Burnett followed Sweden’s lessons and took over the show for CBS, which at the time was left as the fourth-largest American network.

Survivor US Season 1 in Borneo

“Mark was brilliant at pitching. I was pretty good at it, but he’s a brilliant pitcher. He shared the same big vision, but his was even bigger. He was the one who changed the name to Survivor. I went to the first season and filmed one of the challenges where contestants stood on logs in the sea, and I remember thinking, ‘My goodness, he’s got twenty cameras on this.’ In Britain we would have three. That was the other thing,” he acknowledges.

Burnett also hired Jeff Probst, who is now about to host his 50th season of the show.

“That was also Mark. I didn’t know the American talent, I hadn’t seen Jeff Probst. He had done different things, like Entertainment tonight and so forth. I was always keen on it actually being an unknown, but (Jeff) was a masterstroke. And we didn’t know how great it would be, because it’s clear that he’s still doing it 25 years later and knows the game in a more intimate way than anyone else.

The 1997 US season, with $1 million won by Richard Hatch, was underway. The first eleven seasons were among the top 10 most watched shows in the US.

Fast forward 29 years and the show now has some 40 international versions, and more than a few copycat shows that borrow from the format’s turning points – Parsons even took Banijay to court Big brother agreements and lost, ironically he later sold his Castaway Television Production to the same company.

“I knew it was a big show, I just knew it was something completely different from what was on TV, and I really believed in it,” he continues. “I look back and think, ‘God, I really had the guts not to take the offer to make it,’ and that’s what you’re always tempted to do as a TV producer. I just didn’t want to make it for less than it should be. I didn’t want to make it a documentary or a two-hour special, because we had worked on it, and I knew it had legs, and it was something very different from what you could see on TV at the time. We even had part of the sales pitch, some mock-ups of Newsweek or Time magazine with the photo of the survivors, which strangely enough happened!”

S1 billboard on Sunset Boulevard

Survivor has generated fan bases around the world, many of whom have strong opinions on production choices, casting and format twists: season themes, immunity idols, Redemption Island and more.

But Parsons, who last appeared on set in 2016, takes a more holistic approach to it all.

“Sometimes ideas come from other versions and are tried in other places before they go there, and vice versa. The way I look at it is you have to try these things to see if they work or not. You can try them for a season and they don’t quite work, or you can try them for a season and then take them back because it didn’t quite work,” he says.

“I watch the show from a very neutral position and don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. It sounds so strange, but I’m almost not critical of the show because I’m so involved in the lives of the participants.”

Season 50 “In the Hands of the Fans” brings back returning players and features from the show, as voted on by fans via official social media platforms.

“It brings back many of the brilliant elements that have made up a number of seasons. Ultimately, it’s all about people. Some favorites are back. I’m especially excited to see Mike White, the writer of The White Lotus. But there are a lot of interesting people coming back, so it should be great.”

Parsons also credits Australian survivorafter watching several episodes over the years, which were often considered highly, if not more, then Survivor USA

“Knowing how different the budgets are is incredible. To be honest I can’t speak for them, but I suspect the people of Burnett feel the same way because it’s an incredible show that’s happening in Australia.”

Survivor has also evolved in its on-screen diversity. For Parsons, who describes the format as ‘incredibly democratic’, this is how Reality TV can reflect wider changes.

“From the beginning it was a reflection of society as it was,” he claims. “Remember, the first American winner was Richard Hatch, who was openly gay. The idea of ​​a network show with an openly gay, naked winner… Things have obviously moved on a lot and we’re more aware of it than we were then. When I talk about the democratization of TV, I think Survivor has guided and reflected what people are like on a massive scale.

“It’s fantastic that people are on TV talking about neurodiversity and participating in extremely challenging circumstances. The great thing about that is that people who watch it understand a little more. There were so many closed doors and windows for these people. You never, on the whole, saw people who were different from you.”

He adds: “But you can be a hero whether you are neurodiverse, transgender or married in a straight relationship.”

What is his message to the show’s millions of fans around the world?

“I’m so glad you’re still enjoying it. And yes, you might get annoyed. You might not like some of the things, but we hope you like most of the things in it. Most of the people, most of the things they do, and you like the heroes who win. That’s what we want.”

And finally, 50 seasons later, what future does he see for the show?

“I knew it was a great show, but I never thought it would last this long. All the evolutionary twists and turns have given it longevity, so I think it can continue for another 50 seasons. When they relaunched it with a different number of episodes in the ‘new era’, it’s proof that if your team is great and you’re brave enough to make changes, you can make new things out of it,” he says.

“The biggest threat that we thought could happen was because Survivor was recorded, we could see all these reality shows that were live with phone voices. But we stuck to our guns and made sure there was enough interest and variety, and we kept it going.

“So I think we can add another fifty.”

Survivor 50: In the hands of the fans screens 6:30pm AEDT Thursday on Stan
Australian Survivor can now be seen on 10.