‘7 vs. Wild’ suddenly has to fear fierce competition on YouTube

“7 vs. Wild” has sparked a real hype about survival formats in Germany. The third season is now in full swing, but fans had to adjust to a change.

The new episodes will first appear exclusively on Amazon’s Freevee service and will premiere a month later on YouTube, where the first two seasons were exclusively available. Due to the rights situation, comments from the participants are not expected until the coming weeks – for many fans this is a strong argument against Freevee.

Meanwhile, another survival show has gained a large audience on YouTube. There are two former ‘7 vs. Wild’ candidates at the start.

Behind “Survival Squad” are the former elite soldier Otto Karasch aka Otto Bulletproof and the extreme athlete Fabio Schäfer (aka f2theabio). As a reminder, Otto thrilled everyone in the second “7 vs. Wild” season, he even seemed to complete the challenge with ease and came out on top. Fabio was there in the first season.

Curious: just like season three of ‘7 vs. Wild’, ‘Survival Squad’ is set in Canada. But there are also crucial differences. Otto and Fabio must survive in the wilderness for 30 days, competing with each other and not against each other. With luggage weighing over 30 kilograms, they travel 300 kilometers. Because they need to be constantly on the move, building shelters is not a major problem.

Manfred Lehmann, who was already the German dubbing voice for Bruce Willis, among others, takes over the narration from the beginning – for many this adds an extra quality.

In any case, the success speaks for “Survival Squad”. Two episodes of the format have been released every week since November 4, 2023, which is currently more or less the ‘broadcast slot’ of ‘7 vs. Wild’ on YouTube.

The first episode now has a remarkable 2.2 million views (as of November 21, 2023). The series made it onto YouTube trends several times. “Survival Squad” can be “7 vs. Wild” for sure. The Meinecke show had considerably more time to establish itself.

A particular highlight is episode three, entitled ‘Bear Attack’. After nine days there are already 1.9 million clicks. This episode is also the most controversial yet. The reason: During a bear encounter, Otto Karasch fired a warning shot, after which he was criticized on social media.

According to several people, the two survival experts in this situation were the aggressors and not the bear. Ultimately, however, the animal was not injured. Moreover, it would be difficult for outsiders to judge how dangerous the moment really was.