For the first time during its entire 41 season run, CBS has pulled their reality series Survivor from the upcoming fall schedule due to coronavirus concerns. CBS will now move their procedural drama S.W.A.T. from midseason to fall in order to fill out the schedule due to other schedule moves on Wednesday nights.
Producers held out hope that that could get Survivor up and running to hit the fall deadline. The network continues to work with officials in Fiji on the "appropriate time" to start production with health and safety measures being its top priority. The show hosted and executive produced by Jeff Probst was set to air in the 8:00 PM slot on Wednesday. Instead, the upcoming season of The Amazing Race will move from 9:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
The fourth season of Seal Team will move up an hour to 9:00 PM while the fourth season of S.W.A.T., originally planned for midseason, will join the Wednesday schedule at 10:00 PM. Survivor postponed production back in March on the day the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. The hope was to resume production of season 41 in May but it became clear this was going to be hard, especially since a show like Survivor was trickier to get back into production because it's a show that has to navigate international waters.
The move for Survivor on CBS is the first major broadcast network rescheduling due to the coronavirus causing delays in production. Don't be surprised if we hear more of these before the year is out.
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