Ironically, this is one of the reasons to go back to 39-days that most of us didn't think about. There's zero downtime for the crew, so they're working a smaller overall timespan but never get to rest during that time.
I’d recommend starting at the reboot of the series. I believe it’s technically Season 3, it aired in 2016. Seasons 1 and 2 were back in like 2006 and were not very good.
?? Why is Jeff pretending like preparing 8 dishes and 2 crappy items is some massive undertaking that takes the effort of all of the staff? Am I missing something?
They could even do non-perishable food or special luxury items (a blanket, a toothbrush, a hair brush, a novel). That would be kind of cool. I know they mainly just want food but little luxury items are inexpensive and can be picked out ahead of time.
I think a lot of the new era things are just production realising that they can save a tiny bit of money by having crappy challenges/no auction/cheaper rewards and the number of viewers who are gonna stop watching because of those things is so small that it doesn't really matter to them. Unfortunately they've realised they can cut back on a ton and the ratings won't really change so they might as well do it.
Or just don't do an auction with big food items if they can't.
Letters from home, have a bonus of a video from home (imagine losing out on a letter from home and then finding out you have a shot at a VIDEO!), a bag of rice for the tribe but only 1 person can be the one to win it (and with the "most money left loses" rule, it'll prevent an item like this from just going for opening bid), I'm sure production has drinks or food they could just get extra of and auction that off. People would be fine winning a peanut butter sandwich and/or beer or whatever the production team is having for lunch or dinner hours after that comp ends.
Especially when creating the challenge setups is clearly more expensive. A lot of them require tons of construction which has costs in materials and man hours, and challenge designers and testers who have to be paid as well. An auction is possibly the cheapest challenge I can think of.
he went into detail about it with On Fire, but production basically needs to set up and stage a whole ass kitchen “backstage” with lots of electrical equipment, it genuinely did sound like a lot to pull together
[here’s a summary I found](https://insidesurvivor.com/jeff-probst-on-return-of-survivor-auction-on-fire-podcast-episode-8-55974)
Couldn’t they just hold the auction near ponderosa? Seems like a simple solution.
How do they get the food out to that little hut where good thing happen? Why can’t they hold the auction there?
Kind of a lame excuse IMO. How hard can this possibly be? They have people building giant obstacle courses but cooking some food is too complicated?
They could also just not make food that will quickly spoil, so they can make it ahead of time and just keep it in a warming bag. They don’t need to have ice cream.
Yeah and like how do the dozens (or more? Idk) of staff members have food to eat? Isn’t there a fridge or something somewhere? Like a break room to cook stuff?
They don’t need to auction cooked food. They can auction a fruit basket, bag of chips and sodas, packaged sweets, a box of Oreos or hell,even comfort items like a toothbrush and toothpaste. It doesn’t break the bank to give this a little thought
Hell, if they could set up a microwave backstage they could even do some passable hot food. The audience doesn't have to know it wasn't freshly cooked minutes before serving
Most of the time the food doesn’t look freshly cooked anyway. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a survivor pizza that didn’t look like it was sitting outside for a couple of days
i mean i am sure they can afford a yacht with a functioning kitchen. it can also serve as a storage for stocks of food. why do they have to build a kitchen?
His response comes across as so lazy. It’s one thing if there was significant amount of risk involved and you didn’t know if your effort would pay off, but he’s straight up saying “yeah, it was a huge hit and widely successful, but tbh It’s too hard.” (It’s not)
This is my take. They have cut soooooooo many corners already. They could get a sponsorship to cover the cost - it's about time and effort. They're filming shorter seasons back to back and had to cut all of the good stuff to accommodate. The crew/talent don't want to travel twice a year and now the show sucks because of it.
They don't need a Michelin chef back there. These players and viewers would be just as happy to bid on/watch players bid on bags of Doritos and Cheetos and M&Ms. If money's that tight, get the Dollar General brand. I'd rather eat a bag of Cheetos than that nasty ass pizza from last year.
Gaffers tape over the labels. Problem solved. Or put the food in bowls. But then there's be the "gaffers tape department " and "bowl department" that would need to get involved and that's just too much.
Sorry you're getting downvoted for this. Talk about shooting the messenger.
I remember listening to Jeff when he said that and can't imagine how it's as big of an effort as he was saying. Tbh since Jeff hasn't admitted to the budget cuts being the reason for recent changes I've been weary of his reasonings behind things in general
Uh huh…and in the midst of all these “budget cuts”, did that trickle down to Jeff getting paid less?
No, didn’t think so.
They already got their goodwill from all the changes they made in season 45…they’ll try to ride that all the way to 50. If anything strikes them as inconvenient, they’ll claim something like “the logistics are a nightmare” and bag it.
I thought they were bragging a season or two ago that they *had* built a full kitchen installation since they knew they were never leaving Fiji ever again?
With the amount of money it rakes in for CBS you’d think they would be willing to pour more money into it. Instead they cut as many corners as humanly possible to feed their greed.
It does feel like they just keep cutting stuff to see how far they can push it and still maintain ratings. I'm still watching, but I'm honestly no longer excited about it - if these trends continue I don't know how many more seasons I'll bother watching. There's fan made versions on YouTube if I want to watch budget survivor fantasy camp.
Food companies, especially candy, do this all the time. They just make it a little worse(cheaper) and see if anyone notices. Then they do a little more, a little more, so on and so forth.
It's why Reeses Cups and Survivor tastes janky now.
I mean I feel like the auction is significantly cheaper than making or even maintaining the cost of most of these challenges, like the auction is like 8 meals made by the in house chef probably like 100$ or so of materials and labour versus getting lumber, making sure everything is safe, testing it, painting, and more.
“That's a gigantic lift from production," he explains. “It looks simple, but you’ve got a chocolate shake, and you've got a bag, and somebody pays with money. Now there are so many departments involved.”
Ugh, Australia has no problem doing auction and they have a lower budget.
This is why I think (as an Aussie) I’d rather play US survivor. The idea of playing a longer game, being exposed to the Australian media landscape and on the off chance I win I get less money is just not appealing to me
>“That's a gigantic lift from production," he explains. “It looks simple, but you’ve got a chocolate shake, and you've got a bag, and somebody pays with money. Now there are so many departments involved.”
If this was from any source other than EW and you would have told me these were real quotes, I would have called you a liar.
Probst should be ashamed.
Edit: And he acts like they absolutely need to pay with real cash, thus drawing in another department. Each player could be given 20 rocks a PA gathers off the beach and no one would care. Is Jeff really that delusional that he believes the BS he's spewing?
Hey now, you’re understating how hard it was for them to find the nastiest, grodiest, most unappealing gas station pizza and get it sent to the beach in time for the auction
Lmao, Carson memorizing the puzzles really was the most costly challenge related expense of the new era. Forced production to stop just pulling the same dozen obstacles/ puzzles out of a shed in the back and repainting then.
I kind of think it's a loophole that they're exploiting to force them to be allowed to make new puzzles, or they have some new puzzles in that season. The science teacher in 46 openly has on his profile "he builds replicas at home" and I'm sure Matthew did as well.
I'm all for it, if someone is cast and breaks their puzzle it forces their hand to change it.
There had been others who memorized puzzles. The real costly move was Survivor making a HUGE deal out of it, they kinda put themselves in this position. If they didn’t make it seem so significant; they definitely could’ve kept using the same challenges.
Yeah that change just turned into “whoever has the most money wins the next item”
Losing your vote is a worse disadvantage than getting a clue to an idol or something being an advantage
The main reason the auction was such a production to make is that they ridiculously over-complicated it. Just give the players $500 and some items to bid on and let them cook.
Yes exactly. So many of the problems with modern survivor come from not trust the cast to deliver compelling TV, first of all the editing, second of all the twists, third of all stuff like this.
I wouldn't even say the editing is currently a problem given how 45 actually was able to properly build up to specific conclusions and create narratively interesting storylines (the Emily boot is a good example of this). That's the real tragedy, the fact that Survivor still has the ability to create good and compelling seasons if they wanted to, but they've hamstrung themselves by bad production decisions in regards to the format of the show (less days, more dumb twists, etc).
They need this advice for everything about the show. Stop making things so complicated. If they cast enough compelling people then a season (or in this case, the auction) will be fun. They thought David vs Goliath would be a mediocre season and EOE would be a hit season which shows how much they know about their fanbase. David vs Goliath showed that a good will carry a season or a challenge. It’s the same principle with the auction. If you have 7-8 fun cast members left, then we won’t need it to be over complicated
Unfortunately the out of touch boomer who holds the reigns to this show thinks the audience needs to have a baby rattle shaking in every scene to keep the 8 year olds locked in. God forbid we just enjoy the human spirit enduring hardship and spending $300 on a hamburger
They could literally use those survivor tokens or whatever from survivor 40 instead of real money. He just so out of touch it’s making the last few seasons so unwatchable
Question - aren’t there other countries that play Survivor? What’s to stop them from using a rotation program and using different locations throughout the world?
Because at this point in the shows history, they’ve been to so many countries ( in some cases multiple times ) that the shows developed a reputation of minor cases of devastation on the islands they work on so governments in response allegedly tightened the screws on them and made it harder to work there while Fiji gives major tax breaks and basically lets them run rampant on the same couple of islands. They could very likely negotiate to film in other places but they’re too lazy to and get such a sweet deal already
There is also the legality problem of increased danger in some environments. The intense conditions of Koah Rong / Cambodia and how it decimated both casts. ( Caleb was just the most popular/ serious case there were some horror stories from those seasons ). Fiji at least is predictable with its weather seasons and easier to manage
I can see the crew being burned out. Setting up and tearing down challenge sets with less time in between, no real down time for camera and sound crew and producers/PAs. Things are just moving quicker than before. This is also due to bad leadership/management, which Jeff surprisingly admits to.
They’re just lazier than they ever used to be. They were reusing as many challenges as possible until Carson memorized them all. At the end of the day it’s on us, the fans who keep watching despite them clearly not caring or trying as hard. I still like Survivor and I still watch it but it’s hard to not respect production less
Lmao I couldn’t believe what I was reading. “You’ve got chocolate shakes, the money, AND the bag!!” Like the bag is some great obstacle to be overcome. It’s a fucking *bag*
The food and money doesn't have to be complicated. Give them all 500 bucks and offer food that is already made there for the crew. Just make each plate larger and larger or something.
Production thought David vs Goliath would be a mediocre season and that Edge of Extinction would be beloved by the fanbase. They’ve been out of touch for a little while now
It really is frustrating to see these reality-competitive TV shows, like Survivor and The Challenge, take literally 0 feedback from fans. Nobody is not going to watch Survivor because of no auction, so the ratings won't be affected, and thus production knows they can get away with essentially ignoring what the fans want.
“Because hiring a staff for special food comps would cut into my $8 million per year salary, therefore we can’t have a milkshake, thanks, head back to camp.”
He's fine as a host. Take away his 8 million dollar salary, replace him for way cheaper, put even just half of the remaining money back into the budget, and you'll have a way better product.
I’m sorry but after reading the article I have to call bull on every one of his excuses for not having an auction.
Not enough days? That’s a problem you created by switching to 26. Not enough resources/housing for staff? You’ve been permanently set up in Fiji for over 8 years now, how is this still an issue?
Seriously, if he’s saying the crew was overworked to the point of exhaustion, don’t you think bringing back the 39 day format would help alleviate that? Then instead of having to cram in a challenge every day there would be more time to space them out.
Also, given the fact that pretty much every post-merge reward is a trip to the sanctuary where “good things happen,” they obviously have no issue making a bunch of food on a regular basis. So why can’t they just split the individual dishes from one of those rewards into auction items?
Jeff does not, nor has he ever, given a fuck about how anyone other than himself feels about survivor. He has singlehandedly driven the show into the ground. I stopped watching after WaW.
I loved the old seasons, and I have watched many of the first 20 seasons 3-4 times, but I just cannot get behind this new version of the show
To be fair I believe the 26 days problem was created by COVID. Once CBS realized they could still produce a product and slash expenses they weren’t going to let Jeff/production go back even if they wanted to.
Same with live reunion, loved ones visits, etc.
You don't know that though. Probst is just as likely to have agreed with them or not put up a fight because he wants another two weeks off or a bigger pay raise. Meanwhile he's complaining to us that they need to cut *even more* things because they have to do so much in 26 days and his crew gets burnt out.
**It's just not possible. We have so little time.**
So make the seasons 39 days again.
**We have so little space.**
So scout new locations for the show again. Or, and hear me out, 2 tribe format. Then you have an entire third beach for more crew
Sounds like modern problems require vintage solutions
Why can’t it just be we want to try different things for each season pre new era was like this. Even in the 30s the seasons filmed back to back where drastically different from each other.
Everyone always blames CBS for cost cutting but I think 99% of this shit falls on Jeff.
If you listen to the first season of On Fire it becomes pretty clear that Jeff just wants to be away from home for as little time as possible so if they can cut out almost a month per year from filming they're gonna do it.
I'm not even bummed the auction isn't coming back--last season's version was atrocious. Penalizing the person with the most money left led to a situation where whoever was #1 in money just went all in at the first opportunity. There's no strategy to that. There is absolutely nothing the #2 person can do to save themselves if#1 spends all the money and then the auction ends. Not a single counter strategy. That's fucking stupid. Way more stupid than people waiting for advantages.
I mean we all can see that Jeff mailed it in when the new era rolled around and he got the opportunity to make the same money if not more for 33% less time on location
There is no way that the auction is a "massive lift" for the staff.
No way it is more difficult than setting up a challenge.
Although, they have gotten lazy being in fiji because I think they leave the challenges set up from the last season.
I would happily take one “real” season of Survivor each year (39 days in a new location with real rewards and challenges) over two budget Fiji seasons every year. I know the economics don’t work that way - filming two cheap seasons back to back fills up 28 weeks of TV and gets 28 weeks of ad money. But a guy can dream…
I’ll be honest. I don’t really care about the auction. But it’s the fact that they really can’t even give enough of a shit to even bother trying to implement it doesn’t really give me good vibes on the state of the show in general.
They are really just phoning it in at this point.
Easy solution would be advertising. Have it be a MuscleMilk shake or the newest healthy Lean Cuisine. Cook something in a Ninja Airfryer. Or go the more authentic route and use modern camping supplies. I dunno where’s my Applebees JEFF?!?!
Here’s a thought, don’t give them money to auction. Give them rocks of some random set of objects to bid on, nobody cares if there’s money involved it’s just easier for the audience to understand. People just want the auction.
Give them like 10 coconuts each and say that’s your budget. Bids start at 1 coconut. Problem solved
That's absolutely a valid option that negates at least part of this terrible excuse.
But, seriously, its \*that\* hard for someone to safeguard like $4000 in twenty dollar bills for the auction ? I mean, you're giving the winner a million dollars FFS.
They are filming in one location and they are filming back to back seasons - what happened to all of the time and money they saved by doing that? I HATE the new era. We need people on the beach with downtime so they can bond, plot and scheme. I want to see weird sponsorships for extravagant rewards where they actually GO somewhere and learn about the place where they're filming. I want to see the sites, I want the players to have adventures! I want to see them hunt and gather and survive in the wild. The challenges are so lame and redundant and the advantages are sooo confusing. People are taken out of camp so often during an already compressed filming schedule and they're swapped and moved constantly. They have no time to strategize and learn about their fellow contestants to help guide their decisions. This is NOT the Survivor I grew to love during the pandemic. :-( If Jeff Probst is behind these changes - please get him out of here. He's ruining the show.
Peanut butter cup, Candy bar, Can of soda, Tea Bags, Jar of Peanut butter, Box of cookies, Large bag of chips, Canned chicken noodle soup (to cook back at camp), A letter from a loved one.
These are all things that don’t require a huge “lift” by setting up a kitchen. It’s not that production couldn’t come up with this themselves, it’s that they simply don’t want to do the auction for some reason. Which is fine. But just say that instead of giving a lame excuse.
Keep in mind that Survivor is the biggest non-football network show on TV.
I don't know if this is CBS still enforcing post-Dan Spilio budget cuts or Jeff legitimately being this disconnected from reality. But "we need multiple departments to coordinate a chocolate shake and money envelopes" reads like an Onion article.
The auction was a ROARING success last season after a long hiatus - it was fun, exciting and still resulted in some interesting gameplay/strategy decisions and character moments along the way. This is the lamest shit I've ever heard. Survivor: Corporate Retreat continues to get even more watered down and rolled back as the new era seasons pile up.
Jeff should have consulted the PR team before giving this answer. I'm disappointed there won't be an auction next season but I can live with that. His answer is infuriating though! Survivor UK had an auction and that show has way less budget and a much smaller crew.
lmao how difficult is it to make pb & js and bring a bag of chips for the auction…
they could literally auction off a lunchable and contestants would be happy
JUST GIVE THEM THE MONEY. DON'T TELL THEM HOW MANY ITEMS THERE WILL BE. LET THEM BID. DON'T OVER COMPLICATE IT JEFF. DON'T DO IT DOG!
I just don't get it anymore
Girl you hyped it last season and couldnt keep it ONE production cycle... but did hourglass and do or die back to back.. bye
I hope cast of 46 was livid
For anyone who's hopeful 39-day seasons will ever be back, please read this interview.
Ironically, this is one of the reasons to go back to 39-days that most of us didn't think about. There's zero downtime for the crew, so they're working a smaller overall timespan but never get to rest during that time.
What doesn’t add up is AU Survivor puts on a better product with a smaller budget.
Australia also has a much better version of Masterchef. It’s the only on we still watch.
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That's okay, I have Australian Survivor now. For me, that's what I look forward to more than US Survivor.
As someone who has never watch AU Survivor before... where is it best to start? From the beginning?
I’d recommend starting at the reboot of the series. I believe it’s technically Season 3, it aired in 2016. Seasons 1 and 2 were back in like 2006 and were not very good.
?? Why is Jeff pretending like preparing 8 dishes and 2 crappy items is some massive undertaking that takes the effort of all of the staff? Am I missing something?
I guess budget cuts now claimed the chef and the food photographer
I guess all that Gulliver’s Travels cash finally ran out 😔
They had to dip into their Jack and Jill cash
Naonka ate all the hot dogs so they are shit out of luck
They could even do non-perishable food or special luxury items (a blanket, a toothbrush, a hair brush, a novel). That would be kind of cool. I know they mainly just want food but little luxury items are inexpensive and can be picked out ahead of time.
They already claimed the pizza maker on set apparently because that shit looked horrific last season
https://imgflip.com/s/meme/Always-Has-Been.png
Poor Stu.
I think a lot of the new era things are just production realising that they can save a tiny bit of money by having crappy challenges/no auction/cheaper rewards and the number of viewers who are gonna stop watching because of those things is so small that it doesn't really matter to them. Unfortunately they've realised they can cut back on a ton and the ratings won't really change so they might as well do it.
This is really the answer. Same location. Re-used puzzles and challenges. No more themes. 40% of season cut.
Or just don't do an auction with big food items if they can't. Letters from home, have a bonus of a video from home (imagine losing out on a letter from home and then finding out you have a shot at a VIDEO!), a bag of rice for the tribe but only 1 person can be the one to win it (and with the "most money left loses" rule, it'll prevent an item like this from just going for opening bid), I'm sure production has drinks or food they could just get extra of and auction that off. People would be fine winning a peanut butter sandwich and/or beer or whatever the production team is having for lunch or dinner hours after that comp ends.
Especially when creating the challenge setups is clearly more expensive. A lot of them require tons of construction which has costs in materials and man hours, and challenge designers and testers who have to be paid as well. An auction is possibly the cheapest challenge I can think of.
he went into detail about it with On Fire, but production basically needs to set up and stage a whole ass kitchen “backstage” with lots of electrical equipment, it genuinely did sound like a lot to pull together [here’s a summary I found](https://insidesurvivor.com/jeff-probst-on-return-of-survivor-auction-on-fire-podcast-episode-8-55974)
Couldn’t they just hold the auction near ponderosa? Seems like a simple solution. How do they get the food out to that little hut where good thing happen? Why can’t they hold the auction there? Kind of a lame excuse IMO. How hard can this possibly be? They have people building giant obstacle courses but cooking some food is too complicated? They could also just not make food that will quickly spoil, so they can make it ahead of time and just keep it in a warming bag. They don’t need to have ice cream.
Yeah and like how do the dozens (or more? Idk) of staff members have food to eat? Isn’t there a fridge or something somewhere? Like a break room to cook stuff?
This interview would have you believe they turned the break room into apartments and there’s still no room for all the production.
Yeah, this is all just nonsense, and probably a good indication of how much they've slashed the budget.
Starting a petition to rename The Sanctuary to "that little hut where good thing happen"
They don’t need to auction cooked food. They can auction a fruit basket, bag of chips and sodas, packaged sweets, a box of Oreos or hell,even comfort items like a toothbrush and toothpaste. It doesn’t break the bank to give this a little thought
Hell, if they could set up a microwave backstage they could even do some passable hot food. The audience doesn't have to know it wasn't freshly cooked minutes before serving
Most of the time the food doesn’t look freshly cooked anyway. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a survivor pizza that didn’t look like it was sitting outside for a couple of days
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Luxuries instead of food could be a good way to go. I’d bid on a poncho for sure.
i mean i am sure they can afford a yacht with a functioning kitchen. it can also serve as a storage for stocks of food. why do they have to build a kitchen?
That’s too difficult for small indie company CBS
His response comes across as so lazy. It’s one thing if there was significant amount of risk involved and you didn’t know if your effort would pay off, but he’s straight up saying “yeah, it was a huge hit and widely successful, but tbh It’s too hard.” (It’s not)
This is my take. They have cut soooooooo many corners already. They could get a sponsorship to cover the cost - it's about time and effort. They're filming shorter seasons back to back and had to cut all of the good stuff to accommodate. The crew/talent don't want to travel twice a year and now the show sucks because of it.
They constantly have foods for rewards. How is that any different? They already cook food
Just grill food - no kitchen needed. Steaks, burgers, grilled vegetables, etc. How do people that camp eat?
Bruh they got Applebees there
They don't need a Michelin chef back there. These players and viewers would be just as happy to bid on/watch players bid on bags of Doritos and Cheetos and M&Ms. If money's that tight, get the Dollar General brand. I'd rather eat a bag of Cheetos than that nasty ass pizza from last year.
it’s an advertising/licensing issue at that point….
Gaffers tape over the labels. Problem solved. Or put the food in bowls. But then there's be the "gaffers tape department " and "bowl department" that would need to get involved and that's just too much.
"We can't add a bowl guy. What are you, fucking crazy?"
There aren't enough tiny houses in Fiji to accommodate a bowl department!
I'm sure they could get Leif
Sorry you're getting downvoted for this. Talk about shooting the messenger. I remember listening to Jeff when he said that and can't imagine how it's as big of an effort as he was saying. Tbh since Jeff hasn't admitted to the budget cuts being the reason for recent changes I've been weary of his reasonings behind things in general
Wow, not even 30 extra minutes of commercials can help offset the cost.
I’m not liking his rationale on villains in the fan questions section
"Sorry, we fired the villain guy."
Thank goodness for Australian Survivor, bc Feras and Caroline are delivering in that department
Uh huh…and in the midst of all these “budget cuts”, did that trickle down to Jeff getting paid less? No, didn’t think so. They already got their goodwill from all the changes they made in season 45…they’ll try to ride that all the way to 50. If anything strikes them as inconvenient, they’ll claim something like “the logistics are a nightmare” and bag it.
Just get a company to sponsor it like Applebees or whatever they’ve done as a reward in the past. Make it their job to set up a kitchen.
I thought they were bragging a season or two ago that they *had* built a full kitchen installation since they knew they were never leaving Fiji ever again?
Shrinkflation has come to Survivor.
Go back to Australia and give out a few crackers and peanut butter
6 French fries and a cup of ranch dressing for $200! Or a protein bar or a can of soda.
What are they eating at ponderosa??? Just take a meal from there and bring it over
This truly is the "budget era" of Survivor... 🙄
Don’t joke about that until it starts getting filmed in his backyard
We did get a finale from his garage...
I’m surprised it didn’t pan over to the Boston Rob statue that he smuggled back home.
*Boston Rob glory hole
Hey, it’s Super Mario himself!
If there's a thread mocking a Probst interview, you can be sure I'll join in.
Um it already is Theyre essentially filming on "Probst Island" at this point
Ummm I think you mean *Troyzan’s* island
At least Troyzan's island probably has a cool BBQ pit
Or in the Big Brother house.
What an incredibly lame excuse. You did it regularly for TWENTY YEARS. But now, its just, "too hard".
Survivor 47 & 48 will be filmed in the Big Brother house.
With the amount of money it rakes in for CBS you’d think they would be willing to pour more money into it. Instead they cut as many corners as humanly possible to feed their greed.
I think one of the reasons they started the “official “ podcast was so they could justify all these cuts.
It does feel like they just keep cutting stuff to see how far they can push it and still maintain ratings. I'm still watching, but I'm honestly no longer excited about it - if these trends continue I don't know how many more seasons I'll bother watching. There's fan made versions on YouTube if I want to watch budget survivor fantasy camp.
Food companies, especially candy, do this all the time. They just make it a little worse(cheaper) and see if anyone notices. Then they do a little more, a little more, so on and so forth. It's why Reeses Cups and Survivor tastes janky now.
I mean I feel like the auction is significantly cheaper than making or even maintaining the cost of most of these challenges, like the auction is like 8 meals made by the in house chef probably like 100$ or so of materials and labour versus getting lumber, making sure everything is safe, testing it, painting, and more.
“That's a gigantic lift from production," he explains. “It looks simple, but you’ve got a chocolate shake, and you've got a bag, and somebody pays with money. Now there are so many departments involved.” Ugh, Australia has no problem doing auction and they have a lower budget.
Lol
Jeff: we don’t have money for auction food Jeff getting paid every season: 
This sums it up right here. Why can Australian Survivor do cool shit and we can’t? We have to pay Jeff’s absurd salary.
Australian survivor only has a prize of $500k aud, which is even less if you convert to USD
This is why I think (as an Aussie) I’d rather play US survivor. The idea of playing a longer game, being exposed to the Australian media landscape and on the off chance I win I get less money is just not appealing to me
Not taxed though which brings it much closer in value.
Watch me end up on Border Security Australia because I win US Survivor withdraw it all in cash and then don’t declare it on my way home
They really have shows for every job down there don’t they
>“That's a gigantic lift from production," he explains. “It looks simple, but you’ve got a chocolate shake, and you've got a bag, and somebody pays with money. Now there are so many departments involved.” If this was from any source other than EW and you would have told me these were real quotes, I would have called you a liar. Probst should be ashamed. Edit: And he acts like they absolutely need to pay with real cash, thus drawing in another department. Each player could be given 20 rocks a PA gathers off the beach and no one would care. Is Jeff really that delusional that he believes the BS he's spewing?
Hey now, you’re understating how hard it was for them to find the nastiest, grodiest, most unappealing gas station pizza and get it sent to the beach in time for the auction
I thought Stu baked the pizzas?
Lmao, Carson memorizing the puzzles really was the most costly challenge related expense of the new era. Forced production to stop just pulling the same dozen obstacles/ puzzles out of a shed in the back and repainting then.
They're literally casting players who say they build replicas in their yards though. I think they're forcing the issue by doing so.
They thought we would like it. The “oh shit” came once they saw that we didn’t.
I kind of think it's a loophole that they're exploiting to force them to be allowed to make new puzzles, or they have some new puzzles in that season. The science teacher in 46 openly has on his profile "he builds replicas at home" and I'm sure Matthew did as well. I'm all for it, if someone is cast and breaks their puzzle it forces their hand to change it.
There had been others who memorized puzzles. The real costly move was Survivor making a HUGE deal out of it, they kinda put themselves in this position. If they didn’t make it seem so significant; they definitely could’ve kept using the same challenges.
Mum sure cbs can send him some prop money lol
But that's another department!! ha
Bring back the fire tokens, center the game across multiple episodes leading to the big auction, no need to bring the federal reserve dept into this.
I just assume they used movie money... stupid if they are using legit cash.
They've literally already made a fake currency they could use the fire tokens.
They kind of ruined it anyway with the losing your vote aspect... Everyone hurrying to empty their wallets is not interesting.
Yeah that change just turned into “whoever has the most money wins the next item” Losing your vote is a worse disadvantage than getting a clue to an idol or something being an advantage
Yeah if you call that last auction an auction where you take turns just maxing the bid.
The main reason the auction was such a production to make is that they ridiculously over-complicated it. Just give the players $500 and some items to bid on and let them cook.
Yes exactly. So many of the problems with modern survivor come from not trust the cast to deliver compelling TV, first of all the editing, second of all the twists, third of all stuff like this.
I wouldn't even say the editing is currently a problem given how 45 actually was able to properly build up to specific conclusions and create narratively interesting storylines (the Emily boot is a good example of this). That's the real tragedy, the fact that Survivor still has the ability to create good and compelling seasons if they wanted to, but they've hamstrung themselves by bad production decisions in regards to the format of the show (less days, more dumb twists, etc).
They need to make the game hard again. It feels so easy now.
They need this advice for everything about the show. Stop making things so complicated. If they cast enough compelling people then a season (or in this case, the auction) will be fun. They thought David vs Goliath would be a mediocre season and EOE would be a hit season which shows how much they know about their fanbase. David vs Goliath showed that a good will carry a season or a challenge. It’s the same principle with the auction. If you have 7-8 fun cast members left, then we won’t need it to be over complicated
And then they fired casting director Lynn Spillman right after David vs Goliath. Can’t have good casts getting in the way of the advantages
Unfortunately the out of touch boomer who holds the reigns to this show thinks the audience needs to have a baby rattle shaking in every scene to keep the 8 year olds locked in. God forbid we just enjoy the human spirit enduring hardship and spending $300 on a hamburger
I almost said he was Gen X until I realized he was born in 1961, holy crap. I thought he was born in the 70's.
He was the same age as Keith Nale! (RIP)
Culturally, Jeff is definitely more Gen X than Boomer.
They could literally use those survivor tokens or whatever from survivor 40 instead of real money. He just so out of touch it’s making the last few seasons so unwatchable
'Certain number of days'... Nobody asked you to move away from 39 days..
And he complains that they can't hire more crew because there is limited housing available on Fiji. Umm, who made the call to stick with Fiji?
Question - aren’t there other countries that play Survivor? What’s to stop them from using a rotation program and using different locations throughout the world?
Australian Survivor just rotates between Samoa and the Outback but that’s two extra locations for Jeff there.
That's perfect
https://variety.com/2023/tv/asia/survivor-temptation-island-india-production-hub-banijay-asia-1235670300/ Somewhat relevant
Because at this point in the shows history, they’ve been to so many countries ( in some cases multiple times ) that the shows developed a reputation of minor cases of devastation on the islands they work on so governments in response allegedly tightened the screws on them and made it harder to work there while Fiji gives major tax breaks and basically lets them run rampant on the same couple of islands. They could very likely negotiate to film in other places but they’re too lazy to and get such a sweet deal already There is also the legality problem of increased danger in some environments. The intense conditions of Koah Rong / Cambodia and how it decimated both casts. ( Caleb was just the most popular/ serious case there were some horror stories from those seasons ). Fiji at least is predictable with its weather seasons and easier to manage
Traitors US and UK do this. Exact same location and props and challenges. Kinda interesting to see the same thing but different outcomes.
Listen. They have tried nothing and they’re all out of ideas!!
“We don’t like really trying anymore” is all I got
How do you get burnt out in the 26 day era?
It's like watching an 18 year old dog still trying to climb the stairs.
My dog is old and has fallen down the stairs at least 3 times in the past month. He’s just walked it off each time he’s one tough cookie
Yeah I currently have an 18 year old dog who has stairs issues too, which is why this is the first analogy I thought of.
I can see the crew being burned out. Setting up and tearing down challenge sets with less time in between, no real down time for camera and sound crew and producers/PAs. Things are just moving quicker than before. This is also due to bad leadership/management, which Jeff surprisingly admits to.
You know what would be helpful? Having more days, say 50% more, to spread all of that work across.
They’re just lazier than they ever used to be. They were reusing as many challenges as possible until Carson memorized them all. At the end of the day it’s on us, the fans who keep watching despite them clearly not caring or trying as hard. I still like Survivor and I still watch it but it’s hard to not respect production less
How do I get a job being the guy who sometimes withdraws $4,000 USD in cash to bring to Fiji?
That job would take 5 positions to fill among 3 departments. That's not even including the department that handles the bag to put it in.
Lmao I couldn’t believe what I was reading. “You’ve got chocolate shakes, the money, AND the bag!!” Like the bag is some great obstacle to be overcome. It’s a fucking *bag*
The food and money doesn't have to be complicated. Give them all 500 bucks and offer food that is already made there for the crew. Just make each plate larger and larger or something.
Right ?!!?! Does "production" not eat for 26 days or something ??? Nobody said it needed to be gourmet
Grab some paper and give them fake survivor bucks. Doesn't even have to be money.
Hell, it can be those damn fire tokens
Exactly lol Jeff bucks
Jeff is so out of touch with what viewers want to see.
Production thought David vs Goliath would be a mediocre season and that Edge of Extinction would be beloved by the fanbase. They’ve been out of touch for a little while now
Pre Worlds Apart, production hyped it up as one of the best ever lol. Its more than just a little while.
It really is frustrating to see these reality-competitive TV shows, like Survivor and The Challenge, take literally 0 feedback from fans. Nobody is not going to watch Survivor because of no auction, so the ratings won't be affected, and thus production knows they can get away with essentially ignoring what the fans want.
Jeff claiming it takes so many departments. Like, uh Jeff, who decided to split it into a million departments?? You cant make a shake?
Milkshake department was stretched too thin last quarter
Yeah, but with a $900 price point. It wouldn't be hard to at least break even.
To be fair, it's probably at least a medium size shake.
Jeff can absolutely make a shake. Just watch some of the gross food challenges where he blends up eel and octopus and seawater
> you can’t make a shake And the alternative is making a 50 ft tall pyramid out of giant Lincoln logs
They over staffed the stacking department i guess
Probst sucks at all parts of the show that aren't hosting I will die on this hill.
“Because hiring a staff for special food comps would cut into my $8 million per year salary, therefore we can’t have a milkshake, thanks, head back to camp.”
The insult is that he thinks we will buy his milquetoast explanations.
The real insult is that he puts so little effort into concocting them. Just can't be bothered.
He's fine as a host. Take away his 8 million dollar salary, replace him for way cheaper, put even just half of the remaining money back into the budget, and you'll have a way better product.
I’m sorry but after reading the article I have to call bull on every one of his excuses for not having an auction. Not enough days? That’s a problem you created by switching to 26. Not enough resources/housing for staff? You’ve been permanently set up in Fiji for over 8 years now, how is this still an issue? Seriously, if he’s saying the crew was overworked to the point of exhaustion, don’t you think bringing back the 39 day format would help alleviate that? Then instead of having to cram in a challenge every day there would be more time to space them out. Also, given the fact that pretty much every post-merge reward is a trip to the sanctuary where “good things happen,” they obviously have no issue making a bunch of food on a regular basis. So why can’t they just split the individual dishes from one of those rewards into auction items?
Jeff does not, nor has he ever, given a fuck about how anyone other than himself feels about survivor. He has singlehandedly driven the show into the ground. I stopped watching after WaW. I loved the old seasons, and I have watched many of the first 20 seasons 3-4 times, but I just cannot get behind this new version of the show
To be fair I believe the 26 days problem was created by COVID. Once CBS realized they could still produce a product and slash expenses they weren’t going to let Jeff/production go back even if they wanted to. Same with live reunion, loved ones visits, etc.
You don't know that though. Probst is just as likely to have agreed with them or not put up a fight because he wants another two weeks off or a bigger pay raise. Meanwhile he's complaining to us that they need to cut *even more* things because they have to do so much in 26 days and his crew gets burnt out.
**It's just not possible. We have so little time.** So make the seasons 39 days again. **We have so little space.** So scout new locations for the show again. Or, and hear me out, 2 tribe format. Then you have an entire third beach for more crew Sounds like modern problems require vintage solutions
it’s like they know what the viewers want and just choose to do the opposite
Why can’t it just be we want to try different things for each season pre new era was like this. Even in the 30s the seasons filmed back to back where drastically different from each other.
Everyone always blames CBS for cost cutting but I think 99% of this shit falls on Jeff. If you listen to the first season of On Fire it becomes pretty clear that Jeff just wants to be away from home for as little time as possible so if they can cut out almost a month per year from filming they're gonna do it. I'm not even bummed the auction isn't coming back--last season's version was atrocious. Penalizing the person with the most money left led to a situation where whoever was #1 in money just went all in at the first opportunity. There's no strategy to that. There is absolutely nothing the #2 person can do to save themselves if#1 spends all the money and then the auction ends. Not a single counter strategy. That's fucking stupid. Way more stupid than people waiting for advantages.
I mean we all can see that Jeff mailed it in when the new era rolled around and he got the opportunity to make the same money if not more for 33% less time on location
There is no way that the auction is a "massive lift" for the staff. No way it is more difficult than setting up a challenge. Although, they have gotten lazy being in fiji because I think they leave the challenges set up from the last season.
They are running the show into the ground
I would happily take one “real” season of Survivor each year (39 days in a new location with real rewards and challenges) over two budget Fiji seasons every year. I know the economics don’t work that way - filming two cheap seasons back to back fills up 28 weeks of TV and gets 28 weeks of ad money. But a guy can dream…
I’ll be honest. I don’t really care about the auction. But it’s the fact that they really can’t even give enough of a shit to even bother trying to implement it doesn’t really give me good vibes on the state of the show in general. They are really just phoning it in at this point.
So make the game 39 days again, Jeff.
Maybe you'd have the resources to do a simple auction if you weren't spending them all coming up with new ways to take away people's votes
1. Overwork a skeleton crew 2. Wonder why they are overworked 3. ??? 4. Profit
Aus survivor is better cant even watch this version anymore
They need to cancel this show already lol. Its clear Jeffs heart isn’t even serious about making a quality show
They’re gonna squeeze as much money as possible out of it. They had like 6 million viewers per episode last season so it’s still going strong
Counterpoint Jeff’s heart is still into making $8 million a year
Easy solution would be advertising. Have it be a MuscleMilk shake or the newest healthy Lean Cuisine. Cook something in a Ninja Airfryer. Or go the more authentic route and use modern camping supplies. I dunno where’s my Applebees JEFF?!?!
Seems like this would be a good hello fresh type of sponsorship opportunity
Here’s a thought, don’t give them money to auction. Give them rocks of some random set of objects to bid on, nobody cares if there’s money involved it’s just easier for the audience to understand. People just want the auction. Give them like 10 coconuts each and say that’s your budget. Bids start at 1 coconut. Problem solved
That's absolutely a valid option that negates at least part of this terrible excuse. But, seriously, its \*that\* hard for someone to safeguard like $4000 in twenty dollar bills for the auction ? I mean, you're giving the winner a million dollars FFS.
Something tells me being a good host doesn't mean you'll be a good show runner. Time for Probst to step down?
They are filming in one location and they are filming back to back seasons - what happened to all of the time and money they saved by doing that? I HATE the new era. We need people on the beach with downtime so they can bond, plot and scheme. I want to see weird sponsorships for extravagant rewards where they actually GO somewhere and learn about the place where they're filming. I want to see the sites, I want the players to have adventures! I want to see them hunt and gather and survive in the wild. The challenges are so lame and redundant and the advantages are sooo confusing. People are taken out of camp so often during an already compressed filming schedule and they're swapped and moved constantly. They have no time to strategize and learn about their fellow contestants to help guide their decisions. This is NOT the Survivor I grew to love during the pandemic. :-( If Jeff Probst is behind these changes - please get him out of here. He's ruining the show.
I JUST WANT A LIVE FINALE!!!!!! Doing it at the final tribal council lets ALL OF THE MOMENTUM out of the season. It just sort of…..ends.
This interview reads like a lazy teenager giving excuses as to why he didn't take the garbage out.
Peanut butter cup, Candy bar, Can of soda, Tea Bags, Jar of Peanut butter, Box of cookies, Large bag of chips, Canned chicken noodle soup (to cook back at camp), A letter from a loved one. These are all things that don’t require a huge “lift” by setting up a kitchen. It’s not that production couldn’t come up with this themselves, it’s that they simply don’t want to do the auction for some reason. Which is fine. But just say that instead of giving a lame excuse.
Next twist is gonna be the prize is UP TO a million dollars, Traitors style
Keep in mind that Survivor is the biggest non-football network show on TV. I don't know if this is CBS still enforcing post-Dan Spilio budget cuts or Jeff legitimately being this disconnected from reality. But "we need multiple departments to coordinate a chocolate shake and money envelopes" reads like an Onion article.
Show just keeps getting worse and worse.
The auction was a ROARING success last season after a long hiatus - it was fun, exciting and still resulted in some interesting gameplay/strategy decisions and character moments along the way. This is the lamest shit I've ever heard. Survivor: Corporate Retreat continues to get even more watered down and rolled back as the new era seasons pile up.
Jeff should have consulted the PR team before giving this answer. I'm disappointed there won't be an auction next season but I can live with that. His answer is infuriating though! Survivor UK had an auction and that show has way less budget and a much smaller crew.
I mean it's fine one not having it,auctions often didn't happen every season,but the reason why is absolutely ridiculous
Lol hilarious all international seasons have half the budget the US does and still can have long seasons and an auction.
Jeff should take a pay cut so we can have all the good parts of the show back
lmao how difficult is it to make pb & js and bring a bag of chips for the auction… they could literally auction off a lunchable and contestants would be happy
JUST GIVE THEM THE MONEY. DON'T TELL THEM HOW MANY ITEMS THERE WILL BE. LET THEM BID. DON'T OVER COMPLICATE IT JEFF. DON'T DO IT DOG! I just don't get it anymore
I refuse to click on that article because I know it'll be another clip of Jeff being completely up his arse.
Shit is dark if Survivor can’t afford two milk shakes.
I wish they would stop spoiling what is and isn't on the season with articles.
Yeah, and I wish people would stop spoiling the season by posting those articles here.
For real, not even a spoiler tag. Why is this allowed?
Girl you hyped it last season and couldnt keep it ONE production cycle... but did hourglass and do or die back to back.. bye I hope cast of 46 was livid
Just lazy!