The Apprentice

Mark Burnett (born July 17, 1960) is a British television producer. He is known for introducing competition based reality television as a genre to the United States.

The Apprentice 1 is the first season of The Apprentice, which aired on NBC in the winter and spring of 2004. It is currently available on DVD. It featured 16 candidates.

The first season was a ratings smash, ranking at #7 in the average weekly Nielson Rankings, with an average viewership of 20.7 million viewers each week. The final episode of the season was seen by an estimated 28.05 million viewers and ranked as the #1 show of the week, beating out a new episode of Category: CSI - : Crime Scene Investigation|CSI. It was the most popular new show of 2004.

:This article is about the US version, for the UK season, see The Apprentice (UK Series Two).

The Apprentice 2 is the second season of The Apprentice, which began on September 9, 2004 on NBC. It featured 18 candidates, whereas season one only featured 16. Three new twists were introduced to The Apprentice this season. First, each team was unexpectedly forced to trade one member of their team for a member of the other team, resulting in a male on the female team, and a female on the male team. The traded members then became the project managers for the first task. In the second twist, it was revealed that the project manager of the winning team would not be eligible for firing the following week. Finally, the losing project manager could choose either two or three people to bring to the boardroom to be considered for firing.

Although it did not match the ratings of the first season and dropped out of the Top 10 Nielson, it still performed strongly overall, ranking #11 with an average of 16.14 million viewers.

The mostly male team named themselves Mosaic Corporation, and the mostly female team adopted the name Apex Corporation.

The Apprentice 3 is the third season of The Apprentice. It premiered January 20, 2005 on NBC. In this season, two groups of nine were divided into book smarts (who took the name Magna Corp) and street smarts (called Net Worth) referring to those with and without a college education. This replaced the Battle of the Sexes concept used on The Apprentice and The Apprentice 2.

This was also the last season to land in the Top 20 Nielson ratings, ranking at #15, with an average of 13.96 million viewers.

The Apprentice 4 is the fourth season of The Apprentice, with Donald Trump as the executive producer and host. The show was aired on Thursday nights at 9 p.m. on NBC and started September 22, 2005.

This was the first season of the show not to place in the Top 20 Nielson Ratings; it averaged #38 with 11.01 million viewers.

The Apprentice 5 is the fifth series of The Apprentice, with Donald Trump as the Executive Producer and Host. Applications were available onlineTV Network for Primetime, Daytime and Late Night Television Shows - NBC Official Site (as in previous seasons) and filming occurred in the fall of 2005.

Sean Yazbeck was named the winner and hired by Donald Trump as the new Apprentice during the season finale. Lee Bienstock, the runner-up to Yazbeck, proved to be very competitive and was hired outside of television a few months later.

This season of the show was the first to not rank in the Top 50 according to Nielsen ratings and the first to garner less than 10 million viewers on average; it ranked #51 with an average of 9.73 million viewers.

The Apprentice 5 was the last season to have George H. Ross and Carolyn Kepcher as main boardroom judges and also the last original-concept one to take place in New York City, although the Celebrity Apprentice edition returned to Manhattan. The show moved to Los Angeles, California the following season and Donald Trump's children became the most prominent judges after him.

The Apprentice 5 on Monday February 27, 2006, right after the new hit game show Deal or No Deal.99664|1|,00.html NBC Shakes Up Post-Olympic Schedule, Zap2it.com, January 22, 2006 NBC, facing a ratings slump, opted to put future seasons of the show on Monday nights (as opposed to its past Thursday 9 pm ET slot). The network hoped to build the show's audience by making this move, as the program had witnessed a fairly substantial erosion in ratings since The Apprentice 1. However, the show faced tough competition with the Fox's fifth season of 24. The finale for The Apprentice 5 took place in Los Angeles on June 5, 2006. Season 5's finale was the lowest rated ever, down 23% from season 4 and down 28% from season 3's final episode (in the important 18-49 demographic).[http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_5186.asp Trumped: Finale - fizzle for 'Apprentice' - Down 23 percent from last season, to a 4.4 rating], Media Life, June 6, 2006

The Apprentice 5 marked the debut of Donald Trump's children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. as boardroom judges when either George or Carolyn were unavailable. Season 1 Apprentice Bill Rancic, not a stranger to the boardroom scene, also filled in for George when George or Donald Jr. were not available.NBC ANNOUNCES 18 NEW CANDIDATES FOR APPRENTICE SEASON 5, NBC, published February 13, 2006 Jack McConnell, the First Minister of Scotland, makes an appearance in one of the episodes.Holyrood Chronicles: "Archie McPherson on a bad day"

For the first time in Apprentice history, all episodes of this season (including the Clipshow with never-seen-before footage) could be obtained at iTunes for indefinite viewing after the episode has aired.

The Apprentice: Los Angeles is the sixth installment of the US version of The Apprentice reality television show. It was confirmed on November 30, 2005. Like the other Apprentice seasons, Donald Trump is the executive producer and host in his quest to hire a sixth apprentice. In a departure from the previous five Apprentice shows, this one was shot in Los Angeles, California. As with seasons 2-5, The Apprentice: Los Angeles features 18 contestants (whom Trump calls "candidates"). Ivanka Trump made her debut as a full-time boardroom judge this season (replacing Carolyn Kepcher, who was recently fired). Donald Trump Jr. also made his debut as a full-time judge this season (replacing George H. Ross, who didn't make an appearance due to the show's LA filming schedule, but made a cameo appearance on the Season 6 finale).