Survivor season 41 premiere date pushed back; CBS shifts schedule

CBS is currently in the process of figuring out their fall schedule, but one thing is clear: They won’t have Survivor.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the network made the move today noting that health and safety concerns make it difficult to conceive that a season will be ready by September. They would need to be able to cast the season, test them repeatedly, fly them out to Fiji, and then also undergo a quarantine period there. That’s without thinking about the show’s mostly-international crew. There are so many logistical challenges with making Survivor happen that it doesn’t even matter that Fiji is a far safer country that the United States right now when it comes to the pandemic.

As for how CBS is going to mitigate their losses here, the plan is to run The Amazing Race 32 (which has already been filmed) in the fall Wednesday nights at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. Meanwhile, they will have SEAL Team now at 9:00 p.m. and the plan is to move SWAT back to its 10:00 p.m. timeslot. Originally, the show was going to air at midseason.

Of course, we still have concerns as to how the network plans to shoot either SEAL Team or SWAT given that much of Los Angeles County is under heavy orders to stay home and businesses are shut down. While productions are not explicitly banned at present (The Young and the Restless started filming today), we can’t predict what’s going to happen tomorrow, let alone next week. These shows could just have later premiere dates than September.

As for the status of Big Brother 22, that remains to be determined. We remain convinced that CBS wants to find a way to make it work, but the challenges here are immense — at least when it comes to caring for the crew and making sure there is little to no chance of infection. (For more discussion on the future of Big Brother, watch below — be sure to subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube and then view our show playlist for more news.)

Hopefully, Survivor can return in early 2021.

What do you think about Survivor season 41 being pushed back?

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