Two seasons in, Survivor Québec has become the No. 1 show on Bell Media’s French-language network Noovo, thanks to careful programming and promotional strategizing.

The reality competition series airs five episodes per week, which may be the reason for its success, according to Suzane Landry, VP, French-language content development and programming for Bell Media.

“We are the only ones in the world to offer four episodes a week, plus 60 minutes on the weekend,” Landry tells Playback. “We want to create an attachment between the audience and the players.”

The plan worked. A Bell Media spokesperson says Survivor Québec averaged 746,000 viewers per episode for its first season in 2023, and over a million in its second, which ran from March to June this year.

Landry says her team decided to secure the rights for a localized version of Survivor after the success of their other French-language reality shows, such as Big Brother Célébrités and Occupation Double dans l’Ouest. She says they realized the channel offered reality shows about love and celebrities, but few about adventure.

“We thought that it would be very interesting to explore this approach … to a show where you see people do something bigger than themselves,” says Landry.

Currently, there are 50 different versions of Survivor, according to Jane Rimer, SVP, Canada at Banijay Rights, the company that owns the rights to the franchise. When Bell Media came to Rimer to license the format for Quebec audiences, she didn’t see why it wouldn’t be a hit.

“I have to give huge, huge kudos to the Quebec marketplace,” says Rimer. “It’s one of the most incredibly active marketplaces in the format space.”

Landry also credits the success of the show to production company Productions J and their team’s ability to cast a diverse and interesting 20 players for each season. The team wanted to highlight the diversity of French Canada, casting from both Quebec and French New Brunswick, as well as look for people of different backgrounds and ages.

Rimer says that the Survivor Québec host, Patrice Bélanger, was a crucial part of the casting process. He’s a well-known Quebec TV and radio personality, and a huge fan of Survivor, allowing him to facilitate both a culturally unique experience, while still having the necessary knowledge of the format.

Both Landry and Rimer say it was a challenge to keep the show on budget, though they did not disclose the exact figure. But Rimer says: “The global media content production and distribution market is not getting easier, the margins are getting tighter. I think it’s always a challenge to make sure that you can get as much on screen as possible from the budget.”

One way they decreased the show’s budget was by working with otherSurvivor franchise teams. For both seasons, the 180-person crew combined their resources with the crew of the Swedish version, who were filming in the same Philippines location as the Quebec version. They shared games for challenges, technical equipment and catering installations.

Landry says she believes that the combination of the cast, the games and the five weekly episodes created a culture of “addiction” for the show, especially online. She adds that the Survivor Québec Facebook page has 1.7 million impressions; their TikTok, 3.3 million.

Audiences even created a petition for a third season of Survivor Québec. Lucky for these superfans, season three was already in the works and will air in spring 2025, according to Landry. When Noovo put out the call for new players for season three, more than 2,000 people applied, she adds. The team had to whittle it down to just 20 people.

“I’m very confident that we will have another huge success,” says Landry.

Image courtesy of Bell Media

This story originally appeared in Playback‘s 2024 Winter issue