3. Eyes roll around a bit. 4. “You’re Fired”, says animatronic head Prototypes produced: 1. Total sales: 0 *
When The Apprentice first began I was a huge fan, but ever since I have been growing increasingly disillusioned with the show. As Mark Lawson recently wrote:
We also sinkingly understand that The Apprentice will continue – relentlessly, until no breath of invention is left – because, as competition increases and ratings fall, shows that people know are regarded as gold.
Here’s my brief guide to everything that’s wrong with The Apprentice:
- Move from BBC2 to BBC1. Moving shows is fine if you don’t change them, its only a different number to punch into the EPG after all, but despite however much channel controllers insist they give producers a free reign, it inevitably leads to an element of “dumbing down”. When the show first transferred it was evident how much “sign-posting” had been added. Everything shown had to have a relevance to the final outcome – forget to do your sums properly? Oh dear, you’re done for, etc.
- Repetition. The opening title sequence is incredibly tedious and repeated shot for shot, word for word, every week.
- Taylor Herring. They are (an admittedly, highly successful) PR agency who’ve managed all four seasons of the show. But the control they seek to exercise, to supposedly “protect” the series, is ridiculous. This year there has been nothing in the way of blogs or individual candidate websites, for example, which serve as a good means of exposing the editing process and the flaws in the various tasks. As a result all we’ve had is a series of bland interviews from contestants who have clearly undergone media training and frankly appear to have been warned off saying anything other than “Sir Alan was right to fire me.” Additionally, they’ve been noticeably uncomfortable about revealing any of the ’secrets’:
- its not a real boardroom
- the recording schedule is compressed, it doesn’t take a full 12 weeks to film
- the ‘long walk to the taxi’ shots are all filmed in one go
- the actions of the candidates are often dictated by where they can get a film crew
- candidates aren’t allowed to use the internet
- Frances isn’t his real secretary
- Sir Alan doesn’t own a helicopter
- His chair in the “boardroom” has had its height artificially boosted
- We know from former contestants that the boardroom sequence typically lasts 2-3 hours or more. However, without that knowledge, even a cursory viewing will indicate its heavily edited. The BBC had an opportunity to put out an extended version instead of the woeful You’re Fired show if they wanted to – it would have got sizeable ratings – but for whatever reason chose not to. Apart from anything else, by inelegantly hacking it down to this degree and swapping things around to make the outcome more “unpredictable” – they make a mockery of Sugar’s decisions – he constantly appears to be contradicting himself.
Its not just trivial things that have been changed either.
In the penultimate (interview) episode of series one, James Max was shown as being fired before Paul Torrisi, when in fact it took place the other way around.In series three, Katie Hopkins was offered the position of first finalist, only to be shown to have doubts and be asked to stand down. At this point I’d like to quote The Guardian’s highly perceptive media editor Janine Gibson; who in 2007 single-handedly did more more than anyone to expose corruption in UK television:
That’s just bizarre. There’s something happened off camera that we’re not being told about. It has Big Brother funny editing written all over it.
I reckon he fired Simon and *then* when they were actually hammering it out, Katie pulled out at the “now you come and work for us for 6 months” stage. Then they had to reshoot the boardroom.
- The interviewers. What a bunch of tossers. Every single time. That’s all I have to say.
- When BBC1 were obliged to show an irrelevant England friendly recently, they moved The Apprentice to the following Tuesday. A stronger BBC would have shifted it to BBC2, its original home, for consistency and to increase viewer choice – but sadly in this day and age ratings are all, even for a PSB apparently.
- Product placement. How on earth did they get away with the that Amstrad em@iler phone promotion for the first three series? When you have a modern, minimalist office set and its the only bit of electronics visible, then I call it undue prominence. Mysteriously it disappeared after Sugar flogged his declining Amstrad business to BSkyB (so they could continue to make the set top boxes.) By the way – did you know that Amstrad stands for ‘Alan Michael Sugar Trading’. Oh, you did…
- Alan Sugar. Yes, he was very innovative back in the 80s/early 90s and its worth remembering that at one point Amstrad had 25% market share. Yes he does charity work. But his apparent dislike of anyone who’s had a university education and willingness to take part in what is clearly not a business programme, provoking the ire of real business people everywhere with his TV-favourable decisions.
- You’re Fired – I have nothing against Adrian Chiles (he’s married to one of my favourite radio presenters) but this show is incredibly weak. They can’t fill the 30 minutes without resorting to photoshopped images, comedy gifts (a rubber chicken for the Kosher meat episode, anyone?) and pointless audience voting. One of the worst things is the promise of extra footage, of which there is all of 30 seconds each episode. The panel choices in season four were truly bizarre – it appears they had actually run out of people to book – and those chosen often no longer hold even a passing connection to the week’s events. Scrap it and give us The Apprentice: Boardroom Uncut if you really want to add a bit of value.
- A demonstration in the act of flogging a dead Katie Hopkins has been the unnecessary, vacuous spin-off shows commissioned this year. E.g. The Apprentice – Why I fired them – where we just get footage we’ve already seen and Sugar repeating what he’s already told us, and The Apprentice – Weakest Link Special – I’m not sure if I was more appalled by the number of wrong answers or the level of difficulty (i.e. easiness) of the questions that had been chosen in the first place. Or Anne Robinson. Probably Anne Robinson.
Executive summary (excuse pun):
- Its an entertainment show. If you like entertainment and don’t care much about the business bit, you’ll probably love it. If you like business, you’ll hate it. If you like entertainment, like business and have a more than casual interest in the media interest, then, like me, you’ll wish you could relax and enjoy it but find yourself constantly frustrated by the format, with an added feeling of betrayal due to the inevitable injustices of the weekly decision making made to maximise ratings.
But I want to end with some positives..
- The lack of audience participation. How awful would it have been if people were able to vote? I suspect that’s partly the reason You’re Fired was created, to add a (largely unwanted) element of interactivity.
- Sadly it only lasted a single series, but the Five Live Apprentice podcast with Richard Bacon was compulsory listening to me last year. Done on a very low budget, and – because of BBC regulations that all podcasts have to come from on air programme – broadcast at about 4 o’clock in the morning during the weekend edition of Up All Night – Bacon and the panel didn’t shy away from really laying into the format and the contestants the way every other BBC outlet has been afraid to. I wonder if the podcast met its demise because of pressure from Sugar or Taylor Herring that it was damaging the brand, or simply that Five Live couldn’t justify the money to produce it after repeated cuts.
- James Max – this series one candidate not only remains one of the nicest people I’ve ever seen on television, but his willingness to openly blog about his part in the series and respond to people’s questions revealed dozens of secrets about the production process. His obvious business aptitude and personality has rewarded him with much media work, notably on London broadcaster LBC.
- Miriam Staley – friendly, competent, intelligent, driven (also pretty and tall). Deserved far better than a job with SAS – who later admitted he might have made the wrong choice in firing her. She had previously run a hotel in the Caribbean and is now in charge of major sponsorships at Lloyd’s TSB. Oh, and like James, she replied to every single email people sent her after the show – including mine.
- Ruth Badger – appreciated her more and more as the series progressed. If you remain to be convinced, watch an episode or two of her Sky One show Badger or Bust which not only demonstrates her sales skills but also her people management and general likeableness.
- Lucinda Ledgerwood – nicest person in series four. Heartening to discover post-firing she probably wouldn’t have taken part had she not been without a television for the past five years.
- Last but not least, Anna Pickard’s live blogs for MediaGuardian. Its one skill to be able to write something funny. Another to be able to do so week after week, live, as you watch a TV programme. And Anna has done so for the past two series. If you think I’ve been unfairly cynical about the show, go and read her article about the secrets of its success for a bit of balance?
Series five of The Apprentice will be broadcast in 2009
