Production hours on ‘The Block’ allegedly led to contestants micro-sleeping

In a new report by So Dramatic!, long production and ‘irresponsible’ handling forced contestants on The Block to micro-sleep on the road.

In a new report by So Dramatic!, long production hours and irresponsible management by production forced contestants on The Block to micro-sleep while on the road. The situation allegedly got so bad that the channel had to step in and revamp execution of the show on the back-end. 

According to sources who spoke to So Dramatic!, there was ‘a lot of driving involved during filming’. “Sometimes you would be spending eight hours driving in just one day,” said one source, voicing concerns about how ‘dangerous’ it was, because the contestants were essentially ‘doing long drives off minimal sleep’. 

According to the same sources, however, the production team ‘weren’t concerned about safety’, which allegedly led to contestants micro-sleeping while driving and almost crashing. Even then, the sources told So Dramatic!, the production team did not pay heed to how ‘insanely dangerous’ it was. 

One source told So Dramatic!: “Instead, they would go off at the contestants for sleeping on the road and blame them instead of coming up with a solution. Contestants were like, ‘Well, what are we meant to do?’”

It took a few too many close-calls for the upper echelons at the network to intervene. 

“After it happened a few times, Channel Nine reps came to speak to everyone about it and gave everyone a stern talking to,” claimed the source, adding that the reason contestants left sites together – something they were slammed for – was to ensure their own safety on the road. 

“That’s why some contestants started taking their partners with them on the trips or taking other contestants with them, [so] they could share the driving and not die or have an accident on the road”.

This is not the first time the production team on The Block has faced flak for compromising their contestants in some way. During an appearance on  Hit NSW Breakfast with Maz & Matty, Ankur and Sharon slammed the show’s editing for making them look incompetent and out of touch from the show’s storyline. 

“Always referring to me as ‘actress Sharon’ instead of just ‘Sharon’. They don’t say ‘social worker Sarah-Jane.’ We’re in week 11, and just annoyed with the set-ups and the storylines,” Sharon told the show. 

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