Maintaining Secrecy on the Survivor Show

Factual Questions
1

This would apply to other Reality Tv shows as well.

Since the Survivor sequences have already been taped and the winner is known by a number of people, what prevents a tabloid from secretly paying someone who knows the end result MORE than they are getting paid for keeping the ending secret? I’m aware that they may tape several different climactic episodes but it would seem to me that if the winner was leaked prematurely that millions of dollars of advertising revenue would be lost.

In short,how do the producers of the show maintain secrecy?

2

The people sign confidentiality waivers.

Also, the lawsuit that would follow such information disclosure would be utterly massive.

3

Because the amount it would take to counteract the confidentiality agreements penalty is more than the tabloid could make in running with the story.

If I remember correctly, it’s something like a hundred million dollar penalty. Hardly worth a tabloids investment to ruin the game.

4

BTW, the editor of the National Enquirer is on the record as saying he wouldn’t print the name of the winner even if he knew. They’d come across as a spoilsport.

5

I agree with the spoilsport angle. The magazine that spoiled the ending for hundreds of millions would sell out that issue, and then see a massive boycott for years.

6

I believe, too, that this time around no one knows who’s won yet. I think the voting from the last Tribal Gathering hasn’t been tabulated yet, and will be on the final episode, which will done live, sometime in March or April.

I’m sure Rob Burnett’s taken a peek at the votes, but no one else knows, probably.

7

I could be mistaken on this, but I heard a couple of jocks on the radio recently say that the votes for Survivor 2 have not actually been counted yet. All of the episodes have been shot, of course, and at the end the surviving Survivors cast their votes. But the show decided to air the actual counting of the ballots LIVE.

If this is true, it’s a smart move, in my opinion. There’s no way to leak the results in this case; even if some multitrillionaire wants to give a Survivor a billion bucks to spill it (for whatever reason), they can’t - the Survivors simply don’t know!

But it could just be a rumor…

8

$100M?

Actually, what they do is they must sign a contract saying the person would pay for the cost of the show if they should say something about who wins…Thats more like $5M.

9

Not only all of that, but this time the exiled contestants were required to stay in the area for the full duration. Last time, B.B. was seen back home well before the contest was over, so it was already known he’d lost.

10

Um… B.B. was voted off the island at the end of the second episode. A lot of people figured out pretty early on that he wasn’t going to win.

The final nine survivors all had to stick around Pulua Tiga until a winner was determined, because they were the ones who voted for the winner. However, they were all back home before the final episode was aired. I think most of them appeared on talk shows between the time they returned home and the airing of the final episode. Any one of the final nine could have spilled the beans, but no one did. No one who was voted off before that could have let the cat out, because they didn’t know.

11

The original show was shot on a publicly-known schedule a couple of months before airing. B.B. was already known to be a loser before the show was even on.

12

Montfort said, “I believe, too, that this time around no one knows who’s won yet. I think the voting from the last Tribal Gathering hasn’t been tabulated yet, and will be on the final episode, which will done live, sometime in March or April.”

This has been a rumor that has been going around quite a bit lately. CBS constantly denies this, claiming that the votes were counted in the normal fashion in order to capture the people in their passions.

It was indeed $5 million dollars that would be paid to CBS, plus everyone on the island loses all their money, including the winner.

Mark Burnett(Rob Burnett was Letterman’s producer and prodcues Ed) spend a good deal of time before the show airs making up fake photos and stuff to throw off all the people who try to figure out the winner. That is how the whole “Gervace is the Winner” rumor got started last time. Already, there are fake photos of the final seven contestants, fake copies of the show schedule, and more.

Very early on, the show does let out who will be kicked. They don’t do it directly, but subtly. For example, this week there will be a reward challenge requiring the tribes to have poles on their backs holding water and whoever can hold the most wins. I and many other had seen the clip and had noticed the abcence of Kel and Debb.

Everyone else was there. And it is known that Michales pole breaks, but that is all.

TV guide wrote that Kimmi said she would “go in her birthday suit on her birthday” and it is known that her birthday was day 20 of the competition, but vague things like that don’t reveal too much.

Ony about 20 people know who the winner was, and they are all sworn to secrecy. Even those early kick-off’s don’t know who wins.