Why Ten believes it can achieve its highest ever Australian Survivor finale
Today marks the end of Ten’s 2018 Australian Survivor season, and it’s been the biggest season for Ten yet. Zoe Samios chats to head of entertainment and factual programming, Stephen Tate, about casting, strategy and audiences for the grand finale.
Two years ago, on the eve of Ten’s first Australian Survivor finale, Mumbrella founder and content director Tim Burrowes professed his love for the show.
“I got hooked on Australian Survivor,” he wrote. “What makes this such an interesting format though, is that it’s the opposite of so much commercial television.
“Alliances form slowly, plots emerge gradually, and many of the key moments feature no action at all, just people wandering up the beach, talking to each other.
IMHO, it’s better than the US original now. This is probably the best season I’ve ever seen. Congrats to Ten.
I was looking forward to this year’s Survivor after last year’s lacklustre series. Sadly, the so-called Champion tribe disappointed me. They all voted off an amputee war hero (Damien) and a 5-times Olympic winner (Lydia) because they were not willing to go to the end with real champions. Did Shame Gould win Olympic medals swimming against non-swimmers? No. She won because she swam against the best in the world. Yet none of the Champions were prepared to compete against the best. Compare their game to Kristie in 2016 who took the strongest competitor to the end.