17 years, 34 seasons, and 500 episodes. That is how long Survivor has been on the air. With their two seasons a year pace, they have passed the Simpsons in terms of number of seasons in a series. That is a show that has been on the air since 1989. That’s incredible! Even if the audience eventually leveled off, Survivor has been a very consistent source of ratings for CBS since its heyday. Is there any end in sight for the show?

The Simpsons have had their chance to parody the show in that time.

Here’s what we know: relative to sitcoms or procedurals, Survivor is a very cheap show to film and produce. Not having to pay a cast for each episode outside of the grand prize and stipends is one of the biggest reasons why. Like Big Brother, Survivor is an easy show for CBS to trot out with its consistent ratings and low level production costs. As long as the show keeps bringing people back to their screen, the show will have its say as to when it wants to end.

Throughout the years, Survivor has also kept itself fresh by changing up its format. It has incited some criticism from fans who want to keep the show as pure as possible to its original seasons but it has also helped bring in some fresh eyes. Compare it to a show like American Idol that eventually lost a lot of steam because it never really transformed outside of placing more emphasis on judges and guest stars than the contestants. Once upon a time, American Idol would destroy Survivor in terms of ratings but in 2015, it was cancelled. There have since been plans to bring the show back but it won’t have the pull that Survivor has maintained throughout the years.

Thinking about American Idol some more, another thing that has kept Survivor so popular is its distinctness. Shows like the X-Factor, America’s Got Talent and the Voice all came along and took a piece of the market pie that American Idol had cornered. While Big Brother has a similar “competition” style reality show and shares some fans with Survivor, they are ultimately fairly different in both aesthetics and gameplay. There is no replacement for Survivor if you want to see a television competition in that style.

Simply looking at the most recent season, Survivor: Game Changers, one can see that ratings have gone down. Kaoh Rong a calendar year ago was pulling about 10 million people in on average. Game Changers averaged about 8, never crossing the 9 million people mark. The decline in numbers might be cause for concern if it wasn’t a nearly universal phenomenon for cable shows. Consider that despite losing nearly two million average viewers over the course of a year, Game Changers still ranked first in its timeslot and totaled more viewers over the course of the season than a show like Modern Family.

I’m sure a certain percentage were tuning in to see Malcolm again.

In terms of finding new talent each season, the show appears to be getting better with age. For a while during the 20s, it seemed like casting was struggling to put together strong casts. Since around the time of Survivor: Cagayan, the show has really done an excellent job in finding people that know how to bring it on a television screen. They still receive applicants in the thousands and that isn’t even mentioning the people they can go out and recruit. Under their casting director, Lynne Spillman, the character part of Survivor appears to be in good hands.

As of now, two more seasons are guaranteed. In fact, season 36 should be finishing up their filming within the next couple days. At this point, it’s become fairly obvious that CBS is willing to keep the show on the air for as long as production is willing to go out and film. Since Mark Burnett has been mostly out of the picture for many years now, a lot of the onus falls on the shoulders of Jeff Probst.

Jeff has been with the show since day one and has been a producer since around Survivor: Tocantins. Nobody has given more of their time and efforts into keeping the show fresh in the eyes of everybody. While it may seem like there’s a picture of Jeff Probst aging in somebody’s attic, he is actually getting older season by season. He turns 56 this year with 36 seasons filmed under his belt. The traditional answer for when the show will end has been whenever Jeff doesn’t feel like doing it anymore.