Australian Survivor (2002)

***Australian Survivor (2002)*** is the first and only season of the Nine Network incarnation, and the first season overall of the Australian reality show *Australian Survivor*.

Filmed in the Eyre Peninsula located within Australia, the season featured sixteen castaways competing for $500,000. The format of the season followed close to the inaugural edition of the American Survivor franchise.

## Production & Development

### Conception

In 2000, Nine began airing Survivor: Borneo (the first season of the American Survivor series). The agreement for Nine to air the American series included the condition that they must produce their own local Australian edition of Survivor. The local edition was announced publicly during the night of the local airing of the finale of Survivor: The Australian Outback in early May 2001. This announcement also began the casting call for Australians willing to compete on the show.

### Filming & Development

The people included for consideration for host included Grant Kenny, Jamie Durie and Richard Hatch, the "Sole Survivor" of Survivor: Borneo. Eventually, Lincoln Howles, a journalist from Nine's 60 Minutes, was named as host.

The production scouted locations across Australia to be used for the series. Locations considered included Uluru/Ayers Rock in the Northern Territory and the Kimberley region in Western Australia. However production setteled on Whaler's Way, on the South Australian coastline, 30 km (19 mi) from the town of Port Lincoln, where production was based for the series. This location set up a nautical/shipwreck theme for the series. A majority of the challenges centred around the water (many of which were originally created by the show and not derived from the American series), Tribal Council was located on a shipwreck called "The Great Beyond", Tribal Immunity was in the form of a bell and Individual Immunity was in the form of a rope necklace with shark's teeth. The theme song incorporated an Irish jig in a nod to Australian history – First Fleet arriving. An extended version of the main theme was played during the closing credits of the live Finale and Reunion show.

### Broadcast

The show was broadcast by the Nine Network in the Wednesday 8:30pm timeslot and was rated PG. In addition to 12 regular hour long episodes and the 3 hour long finale/reunion show, two specials for the series were produced. An auditions special aired the day before the main series aired, showing some of the highlights and lowlights from the 8,500 audition submissions sent in to the show before officially revealing the 16 people who would compete on the series. Additionally, the program included an interview with Ethan Zohn; the "Sole Survivor" of Survivor: Africa. The other special was a behind-the-scenes show that aired a few weeks after the series ended and was titled Surviving Survivor. Among other things, this special revealed that the final four wanted to quit the show due to the dramatic turn of events concerning Katie's behaviour (her mental breakdown right before the Tribal Council on Day 37). The producers threatened to give the prize money to the last eliminated contestant (Sophie) if the contestants continued to defy production.

The format of the Finale and Reunion shows of Nine's Australian Survivor was rather different to the American edition's finales at the time. The finale/reunion program featured reunion show host, Eddie Maguire introducing each segment of the show live from the finale venue as the night progressed. The finale/reunion shows on the American edition would begin to use this format from its 28th season (Survivor: Cagayan).

### Promotion

The evicted contestant from each episode was featured for an interview on the Today show on the following day. These interviews were conducted by Richard Wilkins just before the 8:00 AM news. This paralleled the American edition, where evicted Survivor contestants were interviewed on CBS' The Early Show during its time on air.

The program had several sponsors who were involved in product placements spots on the show (most as rewards for reward challenges). Sponsors included Cadbury, Pepsi, IBM, Solo, Jetset travel agencies, Schweppes, Fa deodorant for men, Lays potato crisps, Telstra, Doritos, Ford, Pepsi and Intel Pentium (which was also used in producing the show's graphics).

## Survivors

16 castaways were selected to compete, divided into two tribes.