Jeff Probst on His Future on ‘Survivor,’ the Format Change He Was Told Would ‘Kill the Franchise’ and Already Planning for 51

Jeff Probst is a planner. 

For the last 24 years, he’s been designing seasons of “Survivor.” With Seasons 45 and 46 airing during this year’s Emmys window — and production on Seasons 47 and 48 getting underway in Fiji following a press campaign for the show — Probst is already thinking ahead about the highly anticipated 50 … and beyond.

“When you’re in an executive producer position, you have to have a global look at the show. I can’t just be worried about this season. I have to go, ‘How are we going to get to 50?’ And then, ‘What’s 51? How do we get to 60?’ So, I’m always taking a big picture view.” 

Yes, Probst said 60. My jaw drops, and I can’t even get a question out before he continues. 

“I just started a file for Season 51. Because I thought, I have an idea of something fun for 50, and then what are we going to do for 51? Not some dramatic change but another layer. It does take time to think about,” he says. “The file for 51, it’s just scribbles. But you have to be great every time; you can’t have a lousy season of ‘Survivor.’” 

And yes, there’s pressure there — for 50, especially.  “But the pressure is with a smile,” he says. “This is the greatest job I will ever have. I do not want to be the one to drop the glass ball. I care so much. We’re not going to get stuck out of fear.”  

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. 

As you can tell, Probst, who has been hosting since the series’ 2000 debut, is still extremely passionate about “Survivor.” That passion has gotten him to the titles he holds today: host, executive producer and showrunner. When producer Mark Burnett first spoke to Probst about the show, he knew he wanted to, somehow, tell contestants’ stories from both in front of and behind the camera. 

“In my head, I thought I’ll never be satisfied being a host,” he says. “From day one, Mark said, ‘You’re a producer, and I don’t mean that by title — go do things, try things, say things, ask questions.’” 

A few years in, he was offered the showrunner position and encouraged by Burnett to take it. But he turned it down. “I felt like it was going to be seen as a vanity credit and I didn’t want a vanity credit. I wanted the crew to believe in me,” he says.  

Then, years later in 2010, Probst was asked again. 

“Mark said, ‘It’s time,’” he recalls. “At that point, I felt mature enough to say, ‘I’m not ready but I’m ready to learn.’” 

The network had questions, understandably. 

“Mark did say one of the toughest sales he’s ever had to make was persuading CBS that it would not be too much power to give me,” Probst says. “They were like, ‘He could hold us hostage!’ Mark was like, ‘He’s not going to.’ I never have and never would. I’m the biggest fan of ‘Survivor’ there is. There’s no bigger fan than me.” 

That said, could there even be a “Survivor” without Probst? I tell him it’s impossible to imagine the show without him. But he doesn’t see it that way. 

“I don’t think that’s true at all. I get why people say it, because I’ve been the only face. But if I ever left ‘Survivor’ and it continued on, there are lots of types of people that could bring a whole new perspective to it,” he says. “I wouldn’t suggest hiring a television host. I’d say hire a curious person, who’s interested in people … I always feel like the mistake that networks make is they hire a name or hire somebody based on how they look, and they don’t hire a producer. You should hire a producer who happens to work in front of the camera.”

Right now, there’s no end in sight. Since Season 40 ended, he’s been focused on the “new era” of “Survivor,” which came with many changes. Instead of 39 days, the game is now played in 26 — a change originally made due to COVID-19. 

“I remember several people telling me, ‘You’re gonna kill the franchise,’” he says of reducing the shooting schedule by a third and still delivering the same hours of television. They even gave the network a bit more. In Season 45, CBS greenlit 90-minute episodes, instead of the usual hour-long format. “We’ve gone from 39 days delivering 16 hours, to 26 days delivering 22 hours. I am proud that we were able to pull it off. It’s a Herculean effort by our teams,” he says. “But we like it, and I feel like we do have a new era. And to go to 39 days just doesn’t interest me. This game works.” 

The theme of the new era is “dangerous fun.” Part of that danger was getting rid of the rice given to castaways during the first half of the game. Probst called former players, including “White Lotus” creator Mike White, to ask their opinions. They all agreed that playing without the single bag of rice to be split among the tribe was doable, as did the medical team. 

“We just figured out it seemed to be between 15 and 18 or 19 days is when you need to give them something [to eat]. But that is an extraordinarily long time to go without food. And you do run the risk of them not having enough energy. We haven’t run into that yet,” he says. “It is a weird world to live in where you’re designing a game to break people, to see what’s in their tank, but you don’t want to injure them. You just want to push them further than they will probably ever been in their life.” 

And that’s exactly what “Survivor” has done from day one. The production has also provided mental health support for cast members from start to finish. Participants first meet the psychology team during casting and have full access to them during filming. “But the key is afterward, when you come home and you start to process your experiences,” says Probst. The team has compiled a full binder of resources and a list of different psychologists with different specialties. 

“You’re not just stuck working with our psychologist, and we’re there until you’re done. There is no end. We still have people from early seasons that maybe have medical needs or psychological needs,” says Probst.  

Additionally, castaways are given a welcome packet that walks them through what could happen after the show — from feeling you weren’t on it enough or receiving mean comments online to feeling like you don’t matter. 

“It’s to say, ‘We’re here. We’re always here.’ One page in the welcome packet is a sampling of one day of the hate mail I get,” Probst says. The packet includes quotes from former players sharing how they got through certain aspects of post-game reactions. “We’re trying to say, we’ve been there before you, we’re going to help you get through it and we’ll be there afterward.” 

Social media, of course, has affected the post-game treatment immensely, with viewers chiming in every episode. Then cast members “start feeling less than and suddenly their perception of their experience shifts and is impacted by people who don’t know them, weren’t out there, don’t care about them,” says Probst. “They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. That’s the hard part.” 

Over 46 seasons, “Survivor” has changed in many ways. Each season had a theme, but Probst admits he was running out of ideas — and not every idea was a good one. For example, for years, he wanted an “economy-based” season; he had an idea for a trading post where idols and other items were available for purchase. He even had a friend “build an algorithm” to price every item out. Then he asked White about it. “All he said was, ‘Does that sound fun?’” Probst says. “I said, ‘Not at all. I’ve gotta go.’” 

Another idea that didn’t work was the Change History Advantage put in place in Seasons 41 and 42, during which a castaway could literally flip an hourglass and change something from the past. 

“The idea was ‘dangerous fun’ … And I went too far,” Probst recalls. “I loved the title. I had it on my whiteboard for 10 years and I knew it’d never work. But I just got a little drunk on the idea of dangerous fun, and boy did I hear about it!” 

Twist or not, at the heart of every season is the cast — a diverse group of individuals from different walks of life ready to take on one of the toughest adventures ever. The casting process changed in 2020, when CBS president and CEO George Cheeks mandated that 50% of the cast be BIPOC. 

“In the early seasons, I think of the unscripted genre in general, you could typecast because it was so new — this is the mom, this is the leading man, this is the college student,” says Probst. “That’s not enough for me anymore. I want compelling, three-dimensional people from completely different walks of life.” 

When Cheeks put the new rule in place, “it forced us to dig deeper in our process of casting and the riches are on display in every new season of ‘Survivor,’” the longtime producer explains. “It’s been a really great teacher to me about the phrase ‘representation matters,’ because now you do have people applying who, when we meet them, say, ‘I applied because I saw a young woman who looked like me, who sounded like me, who was where I was from, and I realized that she can do it, maybe I can do it.’” 

Ultimately, it’s all about the castaways’ journey, says Probst.  

“The game is what you have to play — it’s going to push you and it’s fun to find an idol or do a blindside — but when it’s over, what you’re going to remember is the adventure and how it changed you,” he says. “You’re the one that got up off your ass and said, ‘I think I can do it.’ You pulled off the blindside or you got blindsided. It doesn’t fucking matter. You came and you played.” 

And behind the scenes, the team will continue to take risks. 

“We’ve definitely made lots of mistakes, but you don’t know you’ve fallen off the edge of the cliff until you have, and then you back off,” he says. “Everyone on our show knows the same thing: If this show goes down, it will go down in a blaze of fire. It’s not going to go down because it’s boring.”