Sir Alan Sugar’s Searching for Another UK ‘Apprentice’ Again

The UK version of ‘The Apprentice‘ is where Sir Alan Sugar essentially conducts an interview that lasts a few months comprising of weekly business-related tasks such as selling as much coffee as possible, designing a product to sell to retailers or just coming up with their own money-making schemes. It’s now a few episodes into it’s third series (he’s now worth over £800m now instead of over £700m as in the previous series!) and we’re now starting to see the usual kind of entertaining antics on television going on that we’ve come to expect from both this show and the American original that spawned it.

First of all, I do find it interesting that these people keep being described as the best business prospects in the UK - obviously you only get people on the show who have applied in the first place which means they have some desire to be on TV? My argument is that if you’re an true entrepreneur, would you really even apply? Wouldn’t you be more interested and busy making money for yourself, rather than competing in weekly tasks to win the chance to work for Sir Alan Sugar?

OK, you may get an experienced entrepreneur who has already made their money and want to really prove how good they are on TV against these other “would-be masters of business”, but I still can’t help but think you’d be proving that everyday by making money for yourself and making your own business more successful than your competitors?

I suspect that they must be turning away some of the better prospects in favour of putting the “good entertainment value” people on, this has to be case, if it isn’t then my other theory of real entrepreneurs being “too busy” must apply.

If you watch the Apprentice, I’m not sure how often you’ll see the strengths of entrepreneurs - due to editing, it will appear you see this more often than it actually happens no doubt since it makes for better TV. Ultimately I suppose you only need one true entrepreneur with real talent per series to come out as the winner, so the rest of them do make for good entertainment. Sir Alan has had one success with his two winners so far, Tim from the first series has really done well, whereas things really didn’t work with Michelle from the second series. Let’s hope he gets another good one this year, so he hasn’t wasted his valuable time again!

I may have sounded rather critical in this post, but I must say that it’s highly entertaining, it’s one of my favourite shows on TV and I’m sure it wouldn’t be half as much fun to watch as a viewer if they were all brilliant at all the tasks. If you’ve not seen it yet, be sure to check it out on Wednesdays at 9pm on BBC1.