The Apprentice

The Apprentice is a British reality game show in which a group of aspiring businessmen and women compete for the chance to work with the British business magnate Alan Sugar. In series one to six, the prize was a £100,000-a-year job as an "apprentice" to Sugar, and winners went on to work at Amstrad, an electronics manufacturing company founded by Sugar, or one of Sugar's other companies, Viglen, Amsprop or Amshold. In series seven, the prize changed to a £250,000 investment in a business of the candidate's creation, with Sugar as a 50% owner. The Apprentice, billed as a "job interview from hell", is very similar in format to the American series of the same name, which stars entrepreneur Donald Trump. Both American and British versions of The Apprentice are produced by Mark Burnett. The first and second series aired on BBC Two in 2005 and 2006 respectively and the third series ran on BBC One in early 2007, the success of which led the BBC to commission two more series. The fourth series began in March 2008 and the fifth in March 2009.