Ratings - Season 10

[CrossingGuard]

If you guys haven't known already, the ratings for The Apprentice's current season are absolutely abysmal. They're so bad that the latest episode garnered an all-time low for the show.

But first, let's look at the season averages for the previous 9 seasons (source: Wikipedia).

SEASON ONE 20.70 million
SEASON TWO 16.14 million
SEASON THREE 13.96 million
SEASON FOUR 11.01 million
SEASON FIVE 9.73 million
SEASON SIX 7.5 million
CELEBRITY APPRENTICE ONE (SEASON SEVEN) 11.00 million
CELEBRITY APPRENTICE TWO (SEASON EIGHT) 8.98 million
CELEBRITY APPRENTICE THREE (SEASON NINE) 8.08 million

The show has seen its numbers decrease season by season which ultimately led to its cancelation... but it was then revived into a new celebrity format and saw an increase in viewers. Although it decreased again, I'd say 8 million is pretty strong for NBC standards (because we all know how NBC is doing nowadays ).

But now let's look at the ratings for each of the episodes of this season so far.

EPISODE ONE 4.78 million
EPISODE TWO 3.85 million
EPISODE THREE 3.61 million

Eeek! That's nowhere close to the 8.08 million average that the previous season had. In comparison, the premiere scored a 1.5 adults 18-49 rating, which is 53% lower than the premiere of the Celebrity Apprentice 3. That's got to hurt.

What's to blame? The timeslot? The switch to regular contestants? A lack of advertising? I'd say all of that combined (personally, I prefer regular contestants, but casual fans probably like seeing celebrities duke it out for the prize).

So do you have any advice to NBC to try and get these ratings up? Who knows, maybe they read these sites and listen to what the fans say. I suggest switching the timeslot to Tuesdays at 10 to make it a "Reality Night," with The Biggest Loser airing for 2 hours followed up by The Apprentice. Or maybe switch back to the familar timeslot of Sundays at 9:00 pm. I don't know, there doesn't seem to be any hope for this season to have a sudden boost in the ratings. I say wait until the next Celebrity Apprentice and see if ratings are still just as bad.

One thing's for sure: Trump is still going to tout this show as the "#1 show in America" like he usually does, even with such low ratings like this.

[jacobson00]

the time sloot and the quality of the candidates.I am not liking any. Well it's the recession "people don't have TV Mr. Trump".

[justCoz]

For me it's a lot the time slot. I have to move things around in my dvr to watch it. I didn't have to do that with it on Sunday nights.

[estygal4]

Needed changes :

>>move it back to Sunday Nights

>>new challenges, more realistic challenges
haven't we seen them out hawking ice cream or ? every season?\
oh and the "wash the dog" moment...yawn...yes, get an MBA or Law
degree to wash a dog

what about more realistic challenges like the first season/s?? Real estate challenges?? I remember them redoing and renting apartments, running a motel or running a b&b , setting up stores, running ad campaigns

>> I HATE the "winner" prize....meeting with some bigwig for "mentoring" ...really phony and boring. I actually enjoyed seeing the winning TEAM get a group prize, riding in helicoptor or on a yacht (I didn't like when they played hockey and one girl broke her ankle)

>> I am "old school reality"> I enjoy watching them in the "house", or seeing how they cope or don't cope
this season could use more of that

I thought I would like this season...but so far I am NOT crazy about it
I prefer it to the "celeb" (d/e/g list) seasons however

but really....it seems like a "repeat"

[Duckyface]

Needed changes :

>>move it back to Sunday Nights

>>new challenges, more realistic challenges
haven't we seen them out hawking ice cream or ? every season?\
oh and the "wash the dog" moment...yawn...yes, get an MBA or Law
degree to wash a dog

what about more realistic challenges like the first season/s?? Real estate challenges?? I remember them redoing and renting apartments, running a motel or running a b&b , setting up stores, running ad campaigns

>> I HATE the "winner" prize....meeting with some bigwig for "mentoring" ...really phony and boring. I actually enjoyed seeing the winning TEAM get a group prize, riding in helicoptor or on a yacht (I didn't like when they played hockey and one girl broke her ankle)

>> I am "old school reality"> I enjoy watching them in the "house", or seeing how they cope or don't cope
this season could use more of that

I thought I would like this season...but so far I am NOT crazy about it
I prefer it to the "celeb" (d/e/g list) seasons however

but really....it seems like a "repeat"

I agree on all points.

I also think that when winning the challenge immediately effected each one of them by bettering their living conditions, i.e. living in the house as opposed to the tents, it really meant something to them and made losing about more than just avoiding elimination.

[Jexter]

the time sloot and the quality of the candidates.I am not liking any. Well it's the recession "people don't have TV Mr. Trump".

I agree with this. The caliber of the contestants is definately different from all the Harvard grad types that go on the show. Or, maybe what I'm seeing is sheer desperation. The people seem a bit more narly at the core than past seasons....unemployment will do that to a person.

For me, the show is just getting boring. I think it's mostly because the challenges are pretty much the same thing season-to-season.

They need to shake it up somehow.

I give them props for giving this season a try, though. It was a good idea.

[Badseed]

The men vs. women thing is getting really old, they need some sort of twist (the grads vs. dropouts for example)

Contestants aren't particularly engaging, despite the "recession victims" theme, it's just the same old bunch of loud-mouthed fame-seeking animals in three-piece suits.

[CrossingGuard]

EPISODE FOUR: 3.19 million

It's a shame, because I was excited for this season when I first heard that they were going back to regular folk instead of celebrities. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I prefer regular people to celebrities. And I'm in the minority again, but I actually sorta like this season. But the ratings show another opinion, and it looks like we may see this show stuck with the celebrity format from here on out.

estygal4, I agree about more scenes from the house! I'm definitely a proponent for more footage of the contestants' interaction with one another; we get to know them a lot better. It's definitely a step away from just focusing on the big characters like David and Mahsa. I mean, even Survivor, after two seasons of focusing on Russell (), is attempting to showcase everyone in the cast in its current season. There are still invisible people here and there (Kelly Purple, Benry), but I don't think it was to the extent of other seasons where people were plain invisible until their boot episode (Liliana in Fiji, anyone?).

Duckyface, sorry I gotta disagree with you. The Haves vs. Have Nots twist was horrible! That twist never seems to work out on any reality show that tries it out. Additionally, that season was also in LA. Has anyone found that if you set your show in LA instead of New York, it'll probably be worse (The Apprentice 6, Project Runway 6, a couple of ANTM seasons that were in LA)?

Badseed, I too would like to see no more men vs. women on this show. It's been done too many times.

[Badseed]

I actually liked the "have-nots" twist. Getting to live in Trump Tower really goes to their heads, making them complacent and snooty. It was nice to see them have to earn their luxury.

Still, I will agree that the 6th Season was pretty bad; allowing the winning Project Manager to continue managing until he/she lost meant that certain contestants stayed in the spotlight week after week. And that romance between the guy and the girl was way overplayed and seemed better suited for Big Brother.

[PA Snow Bunny]

With me it is mainly the time. Thursdays are already jam packed for me. I may do a surf-by during commercials & I honestly prefer real people as opposed to celibrities.
What annoys me most about this show though is the fact that they must feel the need to have at least 1 provacative contestant that they keep until the very end in the hopes creating more buzz about the show.
Personally I found David to be so obnoxious that I stopped dvring it.