For Mark Burnett, ocean swims with sharks are no big deal. But corporate types who devour smaller fish before breakfast—those can be challenging. In fact, his pitch for the now-iconic Survivor reality show was turned down by execs at the three major networks. (He convinced CBS chief Leslie Moonves to give him another chance.)

The British-born former Parachute Regiment commander has changed the face of prime-time programming over the past 15 years. He started small with Eco-Challenge, hit the jackpot in 2000 with Survivor, and has been responsible for more than 20 unscripted television shows since. His latest offering, Shark Tank, featuring cash-hungry entrepreneurs trying to get venture capitalists to bite on their ideas, premiered last Sunday night on ABC.

Burnett took some time out from shooting the 19th season of Survivor in the South Pacific to talk with Portfolio.com about what he looks for in team members, how the future of television looks, and what you can learn about business from reality shows.

What is it about entrepreneurs that you think makes for good television?

The drama is real, in that these people have put many years of their lives and their own money into trying to make this business work—to become who they are. And they really are in desperate need of financing. The Sharks, their need is to make money, to find something to invest in. Those two needs are either convergent or divergent, and both make for great drama. If they’re converging and the entrepreneur who needs the money and the Sharks are on the same wavelength, the drama there is that often more than one Shark wants to invest and the Sharks fight with each other. On the other hand, if the business idea is nothing that any of the Sharks like, the drama is the letdown for the entrepreneur who had those dreams.

Have you ever been in a shark tank—either a real one with real sharks or ones like you present on your new show?

I’ve been in the ocean with real sharks many, many times because of what I do for a living—with Survivor—which is great fun. And I’ve been around actual business sharks, which in less fun.

How did you come up with the concept for this show?

This concept originated in Japan and has aired now for five or six years in England—also in Canada—and has been hugely successful. I was looking at interesting things to do given the economy and what’s really going on financially in our country right now. You can’t even get mortgages or loans from banks—especially business loans—and based upon that, the only chance you’ve got if you’re an entrepreneur who wants to finance an up-and-coming business or increase your business would be to go to a private investor—in this case, the Sharks. So I thought it was good timing for this show in America.

Some people think it’s risky to debut a show in August, when viewership is traditionally low. Were you hoping for ABC to run the show in the fall?

In the case of scheduling, it really is a network issue. They’ve given it a good lead-in [A two-week run of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, followed by Extreme Makeover Home Edition in later weeks], and it’s quite important that you have a number of viewers watching the show that precedes your show. So from that point of view, it’s a positive.

What does a show like Shark Tank and the various incarnations of The Apprentice teach about the business world?

I think it teaches us which people are likely to make it. There’s a commonality: the ability to think logically; the ability to have a good core idea; and, then, equally important as the idea is the execution. Do you believe in this person’s energy to get this done? It shows the kind of people that we should bet on.