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SA Survivors chosen
19/05/2006 21:06 - (SA)
Thinus Ferreira, Die Burger
Cape Town - The final 14 participants in Survivor SA Panama will be chosen on Monday, but M-Net will do everything possible to keep the names of the elected participants a close secret up to and until the viewing of the first episode of the reality series on September 3, 2006.
The results of the last medical tests will be received on Monday, when the participants on the shortlist will be informed who will be going to Paraguay next month.
Die Burger also heard that six additional participants would be chosen to allow substitute players to be available should anything happen to any of the 14 participants, or should any of them decide at the last moment to withdraw.
'Top quality applications'
"From the 700 applications that made the initial shortlist it would have been possible for us easily to make two or three Survivor series, indicating how many top quality applications we did receive," said Mr Carl Fisher, M-Net's head of local productions, on Friday.
"It was not very easy to make a final selection."
The producers, and M-Net, are impressed and there is a feeling that Survivor SA: Panama could become very popular, similar to Big Brother and Idols, a first for the country.
In later versions of these reality programmes participants gradually became wiser because they had seen the previous programmes and knew what to do, and not to do, when they presented themselves and completed their application forms.
"But nobody has even seen a local Survivor series and nobody who applied had any background knowledge to fall back on."
Thick rule books
Each of the participants will receive a thick rule book on Monday and very soon watertight contracts with certain secrecy clauses will have to be signed.
"The selection process is, of course, not a scientific undertaking and we did not have unlimited time and unlimited resources, but we are full of confidence that the participants will be able to make excellent TV possible on the island," Fisher said.
- Die Burger
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South Africa
