Survivor Postpones Production Due to Coronavirus Pandemic

The next season of the CBS reality competition Survivor has been postponed due to the coronavirus epidemic.

Season 41 of Survivor was scheduled to begin filming March 24 in the Mamanuca Islands in Fiji. However, Entertainment Weekly reports that host and executive producer Jeff Probst contacted crew members via email on Wednesday (March 11) that CBS was postponing production until at least May due to the coronavirus epidemic. i

Because season 41 has been pushed up, that means that the following season will be as well. Season 42 was scheduled to begin filming May 24. However, if there are no further delays, then air dates for the two seasons would not be impacted. But that’s a BIG if, considering the unpredictability of major pandemics. Season 41 was set to premiere in September 2020 and season 42 kicking off in February 2021.

Here’s the letter to the crew:

Hey Survivor crew,

Due to the growing short-term uncertainty surrounding the global spread of COVID-19 and the corresponding desire for the continued well-being of our amazing crew, we have decided to push back our start date for Survivor season 41.

Though Fiji has no reported cases and is beautifully remote, our crew numbers over 400 and are flying in from over 20 different countries, creating a need for more time to fully analyze and create our new production safety plan.

This situation is unprecedented and we are learning more information every day. It is out of concern for the well-being of all of you that we have taken this step.

Our intention is to begin production after the S40 live show. Therefore, subject to new information, our new planned start date for production would be on or about May 19th, 2020. Our intention is to still to shoot both seasons 41 and 42.

We know many of you will have questions and we will start a communication chain to keep everybody up to date.

We are the most experienced international television team in the world and for 20 years we have calmly and successfully managed a variety of production issues. We will navigate this one the same way.

Thank you for understanding our need for this extra time to create our plan.

Jeff