articles
January 28, 2001
Burnett's Free Ticket to Ride?
by Barbara Fletcher
Well, it looks like Survivor got a deal when it chose to fly contestants into the Australian
Outback via an RAAF aircraft for the first episode of the show.
According to a Sydney Morning Herald
report yesterday,
the RAAF neglected to negotiate payment terms with CBS.
Ooops!
That means that Australian
taxpayers shelled out close to $300,000 so that Producer Mark Burnett could send the survivors into
the Outback in style.
It looks like the RAAF committed boo-boos from the beginning. Apparently, it slipped the minds of
the RAAF to first secure permission from the Australian Ministers of Finance and Defence to waive the
costs for taking the Caribou for a spectacular Survivor spin.
That's not good.
Oh, and don't tell Burnett that the RAAF also failed to get the proper insurance coverage for
contestants. Good thing that the flight of blind-folded, barely-strapped-in survivors went off
without a hitch. *whew*
Now, do we think that Burnett and CBS are going to cough up any money to help settle the debt?
Or has CBS just been granted a free ticket to ride by the generous Australian RAAF?