NBC still likes Trump, only notsomuch. ‘Apprentice’ pulled from fall season lineup
By Jeffrey Jolson
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 5/15/07 — NBC hasn’t quite fired Donald Trump, but he better update his resume. “The Apprentice” has been pulled from the fall season lineup by the peacock network, though they may let the show return to work in the future.
The reality show was no longer in the Top 100 in the Nielsen ratings when NBC dropped it from the fall schedule, at least for the time being.
Kevin Reilly, president of NBC Entertainment told TV reporters Monday. “Donald still wants to do the show” and explained that word that the show was cancelled was “not news he will accept on any front.”
However, having your show dropped from the schedule is like Trump telling one of his hapless apprentices they were being transferred to the Omaha office.
Indeed, by officially cancelling NBC would risk losing not only Trump, who might re-tool the show or come back with another, but would risk ire of hot producer Mark Burnett.
“If you think I’m going to let ‘The Apprentice’ end — even if it’s not on NBC — that’s not going to happen. Donald Trump is too big of a name,” Burnett said to the New York Post this week. “If you look honestly at the numbers, even on a Sunday, with all sorts of [programming] disadvantages… we’re still beating ‘The Black Donnellys,’ ‘Studio 60’ and ‘Friday Night Lights.’”
Reilly said of Trump, “We love him and want to stay in business with him.” He said he would make as decision soon on the fate of the show. The other shows left off the schedule — such as “Real Wedding Crashers,” “Raines” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” — are confirmed deceased.
Others may be jumping for joy now that Trump has lost his main conduit to American households, even if its for a week. Trump chided HD television pioneer Mark Cuban when he mimicked Trump’s then-successful show, “The Apprentice,” with the not-so-successful “The Benefactor.”
“Mark Cuban was extremely embarrassed when he copied ‘The Apprentice’ and failed,” Trump sniffed. “They threw him off television like a dog.”
“I wrote him a note and I said, ‘Mark, you have absolutely no television persona. I wish you would have spoken to me previously or before you did this. I could have told you it was gonna fail.’
He took an additional jibe at Cuban’s NBA team, The Dallas Mavericks. “Same thing with the Mavericks. The Mavericks have a great team. They’ll never win with Mark Cuban as the owner because he is not a winner.”
Cuban responded in the New York Post by mocking Trump’s lack of liquidity.
“I guess Donald is still upset that he can’t afford to buy an NBA team,” Cuban wrote in an e-mail. “No doubt the cash requirements of more than $10,000 created a problem for him. Hopefully he will sell enough Trump Steaks, Trump Perfume and Trump Dolls to save some money and buy a team. Then we can see how he does. Until then he is a wannabe that needs to get a new spiel.”
Another person cheering today may be Rosie O’Donnell whose feud with Trump entered into the ludicrous. He threatened to sue her after she posted his personal finances on Wikipedia and called him a “snake oil salesman.” He called her a “bully, a horrible human being and a loser.”