Mark Burnett is ready to take “Survivor” back to the Middle East.
The CBS reality series – which wraps its 23rd season Sunday night – was forced to abruptly relocate from Wadi Rum, Jordan to the Marquesas Islands following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
Since then, most American productions have avoided the region completely – mostly out of concern for safety.
“I would love nothing more than to be hanging out in Wadi Rum shooting ‘Survivor,'” Burnett tells The Post.
“We would do the same thing we were planning. We would build an oasis in the middle of the desert and make it ‘Survivor: Arabia.'”
The “lost season” of “Survivor” – in which each contestants would be given their own camels for transportation — was abandoned just eight weeks before cameras were set to roll.
“I remember calling [CBS boss] Leslie Moonves and saying ‘We clearly can’t shoot in the Middle East,'” Burnett remembers. “And he told me ‘change locations and figure it out.”
With almost $100 million in advertising dollars already committed to the fourth season, Burnett flew his production crew to the South Pacific in search of a new backdrop.
“All of our equipment was stuck in Aqaba,” he remembers. “In those days [after 9/11], no ships could leave harbors. So we had to buy all new equipment.”
Burnett also scrambled to find accommodations for his production team.
“At the time many cruises got cancelled. So suddenly there was an available cruise ship,” he remembers. “It sailed in to the Marquesas harbor from Seattle and that is where the crew stayed.”
CBS – which has renewed the series for three more seasons has yet to announce any of the show’s upcoming locations.
But Burnett confirms a “new twist” being added to the rules for season 24 will be revealed during Sunday night’s live two hour finale.
(RealityBlurred.com reports that “Survivor: One World…will feature tribes of men versus women who are separate but live on the same beach. There will be no returning cast members.”)
Burnett says he is hesitant to make major changes to the format of TV’s longest running reality franchise – despite a gradual erosion in its ratings.
“We just add different spices to the flavor,” he says. But we don’t change the meal. We don’t serve up a completely different dish that our loyal fans wouldn’t recognize.”
The first ‘Survivor’ finale drew in 2000 drew almost 51 million viewers. This season the show has averaged a weekly audience of 12 million – still enough to claim bragging rights over time slot competitor “The X Factor.”
“Every show on television has a downward trend because there are so many more things to watch,” Burnett says. “You can only deal with what is the benchmark of a hit series and Survivor clearly remains a hit series.
“We went head to head with one of the most highly promoted series ever – a show with massive expectations. And it is like X Factor ran head on into a brick wall with ‘Survivor.'”