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<\/a><\/p>\nCover of the original pitch document<\/p>\n
ABC US put some money into development but Parsons recalls there was broad reluctance in several territories to adopt a competition reality show.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t get anyone in the UK to buy it. People would say things like, \u2018Can you just make it as a documentary?\u2019 But I was young and ambitious and passionate, and I wasn\u2019t going to do it as a documentary. I knew it had to be a show with a long run. ITV in the UK, said, \u2018Can we run it as a two hour special?\u2019 And I said, \u2018No, that\u2019s not going to work,’\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n
During this period in LA he met producer Mark Burnett, a fellow Brit, at a party who was excited by the concept -the start of a long conversation in which Parsons repeatedly denied him licensing rights.<\/p>\n
After two years ABC\u2019s rights reverted back to Parsons whose bible document by now was so comprehensive he took it to Cannes where Swedish producer SVT and Swedish production company Strix Television showed interest.<\/p>\n
By 1997 it debuted in Sweden as Expedition Robinson. There were plenty of lessons learned in that first season in Malaysia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really starved them on the first Swedish one, and that wasn\u2019t a great idea, because the people on the show would hunt around the crew\u2019s bins! We didn\u2019t get the balance quite right because we had never done reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the hallmarks of the show were present: marooned contestants, challenges, tribes merging, a tribal council, one winner.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Mark Burnett was still hungry for an American version while Parsons found the US challenging.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d had a very bad year making a not-great show in America, because I didn\u2019t get on with the talent. It was quite depressing \u2026.Running my own company in the UK I was king of the castle, but I found it very difficult to be in meetings about why some things weren\u2019t working\u2026 I thought, \u2018I don\u2019t know that I want to produce (Survive) anymore,’\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Mark\u2019s call came in regular as clockwork and said, \u2018Can I licence it?\u2019 I said, \u2018Oh, okay maybe that will work.’\u201d<\/p>\n
It would prove to be fortuitous for all with Burnett leaning into the lessons of Sweden and supersizing the show for CBS, which at the time was trailing as the fourth US network.<\/p>\n
Survivor US Season 1 in Borneo<\/p>\n \u201cMark was brilliant at pitching it. I was quite good at pitching it, but he\u2019s, he\u2019s 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, filming one of the challenges where contestants were standing on logs in the in the sea, and I remember thinking, \u2018My goodness, he\u2019s got 20 cameras on this.\u2019 In the UK, we would have three. That\u2019s what was different,\u201d he acknowledges.<\/p>\n Burnett also hired Jeff Probst, who is now about to host his 50th season of the show.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was also Mark. I didn\u2019t know the American talent, I\u2019d not seen Jeff Probst. He\u2019d been doing various things, like Entertainment Tonight and so on. I was always keen that it would be an unknown actually, but (Jeff) was a master stroke. And little did we know how great a master stroke it was going to be, because obviously 25 years later, he\u2019s still doing it and he knows the game in a more intimate way than anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The 2000 US season, with $1m won by Richard Hatch, took off. Its first 11 seasons rated among the top 10 most-watched shows in the USA.<\/p>\n Fast forward 26 years and the show now has some 40 international versions, and more than a few copycat shows borrowing from its format turning points -Parsons even took Banijay to court over Big Brother similarities and lost, ironically later selling his Castaway Television Production to the same company.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew it was a big show, I just knew it was something very different to what was on TV, and I really believed in it,\u201d he continues. \u201cI look back and think, \u2018God, I really did have some guts not to actually take the offer of making it,\u2019 which is what you\u2019re always tempted to do as a TV producer. I just didn\u2019t want to make it for less than it should be. I didn\u2019t want to make it as a documentary or a two hour special, because we\u2019d worked on it, and I knew it had legs, and it was something entirely different to what you could see on TV at the time. We even had in part of the sales pitch, some mock up covers of Newsweek or Time magazine with the picture of the survivors, which weirdly came to pass!\u201d<\/p>\n S1 billboard on Sunset Boulevard<\/p>\n Survivor has generated fanbases around the world, many of whom have strong opinions around production choices, casting and format twists: season themes, Immunity idols, Redemption Island and more.<\/p>\n But Parsons, who last stepped on set in 2016, takes a more holistic approach to it all.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes 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 in order to see whether they work or not. You might try them for one season, they don\u2019t quite work, or you might try them for one season and bring it back, because it didn\u2019t quite work,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cI watch the show from a very sort of neutral position, not knowing exactly what\u2019s coming up. It sounds so weird, but I\u2019m almost not critical of the show because I\u2019m so involved in the lives of the contestants.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n