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September 9, 2004
New season of The Apprentice!
Flew down to the Valley tonight to attend the August Capital annual meeting. Had to bail out of the VC confab early to beat it back to the hotel for the premier of The Apprentice 2. And I wasn't disappointed! First a couple observations:
- The Apprentice has become a major money maker for Trump, not just an ego boost (as I suspect it started out as).
- Trump is really exploiting brand tie-ins this year. All the tasks are with major brands. You can bet they are not getting a free ride. Look at the list of vendors this year!
- Trump is really leveraging this one with the commercials for Visa and more to come. He is also not doing those for free.
- I estimate The Donald will make 5-10x more from this year's show and tie-ins than last year's show.
There were small changes in the format:
- Tasks are now mostly with major brands and are more complicated than last year's lemonade (although next week is ice-cream on the street).
- The winning team leader gets a get out of jail free card if his team fails next week. I don't understand the logic behind this change. Maybe they felt they were being too hard on the team leader and not providing enough incentive to be team leader. Last year there were many pitfalls of being leader but no real upside. I guess the get out of jail card is upside. Don't know if it will change contestant motivation though.
- No ugly girls at all. Even more boom in the babes than last year.
- There are more of them. Read more Episodes = more $$$.
The producers also kept some of the winning formula from last year's team selections:
- The cookie loose canon (Sam). This year it is Raj.
- The offensive off kilter black girl (Omarosa). This year it is Stacie J.
- The slightly neurotic anorexic loudmouth (Heidi). This year it is Maria.
- The Frat boy (Bill). This year it is John.
- The good old boy who Really is not very smart (Bowie). This year it is Rob.
So like every year (I hope) I will go out on a limb at the beginning of the season and pick four people who I think will be in the final four. This is very hard after only one show because I didn't get to see many of them in real action. I probably will recalibrate in mid season. But here goes:
My choices for top four finalists are:
Bradford
Raj
Jennifer
Elizabeth
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Jennifer C. - you can't become a billionaire by mimicking how a real one eats shrimp cocktail!
Kevin - No experience, not very swift.
Andy - Too young and already deemed a "project" by The Donald. May be kept for a few episodes for entertainment, but not long for this life.
Stacie J. - Too unstable. May be kept for entertainment, but never a finalist.
Posted by Martin at September 9, 2004 10:51 PM
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