Why is Survivor always 39 days? Jeff Probst explains the reason
Every season of Survivor, save for one, has lasted 39 days. In an interview with ET Canada, Jeff reveals the simple explanation.
Doesn’t 39 seem like an odd number to base a reality TV show of off? Excluding Australian Outback which lasted 42 days, every season of Survivor has been 39 days. It’s been so ingrained over the past two decades that it’s hard to even picture the show having a different timeline. So why did production originally decide on 39 days?
With the preseason of Survivor: Island of the Idols in full swing, ET Canada got a chance to sit down with the host himself, and one of the topics he discussed was the reason behind the length of each season. You can have a look at that video below. Despite 39 being an odd number, the reason is very simple.
When they were discussing plans for Borneo, 39 days of shooting seemed like a perfect fit. The basic concept was to fill each episode with three days of content. Day 1 is a Reward Challenge, Day 2 is an Immunity Challenge, and Day 3 is there to let the players interact with each other leading up to Tribal Council.
With a 16 player cast for the first seven seasons, 39 days worked great. That allowed for an elimination every three days (one each episode), until the Final Four which also covered three days of film. Since then, production has played with that three-day format quite a bit, but it still remains as a benchmark for a Survivor season.
Even with a 20 person cast and the same 13 episode order, production sticks to that 39-day timeline. That formula has been so effective for years, and although some international versions of the show have used longer timelines, it can begin to feel like a real drag (I’m looking at you Survivor AU).
Next. Survivor: Ranking 37 Survivor seasons of the show. dark
Ultimately, there’s no deeper meaning or special significance to the number of days in a US season. It’s just basic math: 39 divided by three equals 13 episodes. It simply fits the parameters and airtime CBS was looking for and allows for each episode to typically capture a three-day period on the island.