No Money Shot – All Change For Alan Sugar & The Apprentice
“I’M not going to dignify that,” says Sir Alan Sugar of The Apprentice repute.
The dignity of The Apprentice might not be immediately obvious to the viewers at home, looking on as wannabe suits try to flog pizzas and, if that fails, conjure up a Plan B scheme to secure funding on the Dragon’s Den. But dignity is there.
And in conversation with the Mirror, Sugar will not dignity with an answer the Mirror’s question: Which of the new candidates has impressed him so far?
But surely the must be an improvement on last year’s batch? As Sugar tells the paper: “They just weren’t very good, generally. And that’s because the producers didn’t ask for my input.”
But this show is always going to be a problem. If these people are so talented at business why are they jumping through hoops for Sugar’s £100,000 a year? And we never know if the winner makes money for Sugar’s business. We never see if his judgement is sound. We never see the money shot.
“It’s safe to say that television producers don’t know much about business,” says Sugar.
Sugar does know business. Sugar knows that having to pay out £100,000 in salary to an untalented reality TV show winner is a small price to pay for so much publicity.
But this time it’s been different. Sugar says the new producers have listened to him. “I gave them a repertoire of how to talk to people, questions to ask, how to probe, how to look into the CVs to get the real truth about what the candidates have done and find out if they’re a pack of lies.”
And the producers look and go for the blonder, more photogenic contestants? No. If there is one thing Sugar hates it is wannabe corporate employees using his reality TV show to advance their TV careers.
Michelle Dewberry (show winner) appeared on Celebrity Scissorhands. Saira Khan (runner-up) is a professional Asian in the media. Paul Torrisi presents property shows on UKTV. Syed Ahmed dangled from a trapeze on Cirque de Celebrite.
“The tacky end of the telly market needs minus-Z-list celebrities to participate in various things,” says Sugar. “And there’s no end of supply of these people who want to be seen on television.”
It’s the pile it high and sell it cheap approach to broadcasting. And Alan Sugar is here to help…
Posted: 26th, March 2007 | In: TV & Radio Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
