Alone Australia: “In the first few episodes you’ll see that play out and it’s terrifying.”

In any reality show duty of care is paramount, but in Alone Australia, participants are literally left alone, with no camera crew on site, as they film their own experience.

But what’s the protocol when something goes wrong?

“They have a sat phone and hopefully it’s on them or within reach and they have to make a call. As soon as they make a call it means they’re tapping out,” said Keely Sonntag, ITV Head of Unscripted TV at last week’s AIDC conference.

“In the first few episodes you’ll see that play out and it’s terrifying. We have specialised medical and safety personnel on call 24/7 for that area. They also have to be trained in Australian standards. We have protocols and processes around response times. These participants have square kilometres of site. It’s not just a little campsite with space for a caravan. It is three or four square kilometres of land that they have to roam around and they’re not close to each other. Some of them might be 50 km away from each other. So we have to set ourselves up in a way that we can respond to everyone in a timely manner should something happen.”

She also revealed how the show maintains its authenticity of isolation while at the same time juggling practical issues like crew collecting footage from participants.

“There’s a little drop box. Never a person shall meet but they have a place where they drop a card and then we will come along at a different time and pick it up off them. It’s like a little letterbox,” she said.

“Casting is the most crucial part of any show. I think it really brings the show to life or not. We have to cast survival experts. The point of the show is that these guys should know what they’re doing. And that’s really tricky. Often these people don’t like to put themselves out there or apply for these kinds of things. We have to go searching for them. So that’s that’s actually a really difficult side of it, and it takes quite a significant amount of time at the start.”

7:30pm Wednesday 27 March on SBS.