Devised after the success of the American original and part of the international franchise of the same name, the programme focuses on a group of businesspeople competing in a series of business-related challenges set by British business magnate Alan Sugar, in order to prove themselves worthy of a prize offered by him.
[21][22] A second round will usually be held in London for a small percentage of applicants, who divide into groups and are asked to do various exercises to test their business skills and to gauge how they work as a team.
Following this, between 20 and 30 applicants are chosen and given an assessment by a psychologist, receiving further checks by the production team and providing them with references, before the final line-up is selected from this group and filming can begin.
Each episode covers a single task, which is designed to test candidates on important business skills – salesmanship, negotiation, requisitioning, strategy, leadership, teamwork, and organisation.
Discussions often focus around brash or controversial statements that candidates have made on their CVs and application forms, with the interviewers determining whether such claims are truthful, exaggerated or deceitful.
Since the fifth series, he is billed in the opening credits as controlling a "vast business empire",[31] following the sale of Amstrad and his departure from the company,[32][33] while he is referred to on the programme as "Lord Sugar", owing to the life peerage he had been offered around that time.
With CNBC deciding to focus their prime time schedule on financial news programming, the programme's rights were moved to BBC America, where it started transmission on 5 May 2009.
[52][53] For the third series, 10,000 applications were received by the production staff, with a promise made to incorporate "tougher tasks and better people", after Sugar expressed concerns that the show was becoming similar in format to that of Big Brother.
[68] This meant that when the series began on 25 March 2009, viewers got to see fifteen candidates vying for the prize, with Margaret Mountford announcing her decision to stand down as a participant of the show during its broadcast, officially confirming it on You're Fired.
The decision drew considerable media attention, after she attempted to sue Sugar for wrongful dismissal in February 2012, only for the legal action to be ultimately unsuccessful.
The sixteen candidates who eventually secured a place on the series were revealed on 3 May 2011, via the official website and in a press launch, with the opening episode aired a week later on 10 May.
Both men parted ways on good terms, with Valente thankful for the help and opportunity that he had received, while Sugar wished him the best of luck and that he would be following the company's progress.
[93] As before, the BBC postponed the twelfth series to mid-Autumn, so as to avoid clashing with live coverage of Euro 2016, the 2016 UK EU membership referendum and the 2016 Rio Olympics that were to take place during the Summer.
[94] The twelfth series began on 6 October 2016, and was won by Alana Spencer, who used her investment to kickstart a nationwide bakery business called Ridiculously Rich.
The thirteenth series began on 4 October 2017, and was won by both James White and Sarah Lynn, making it the first time in the show's history where two finalists were joint winners.
[113] Although the show uses footage taken by its film crew for most of the episode shown, aerial footage of various buildings in London is used on The Apprentice, mainly to act as small links between scenes and as part of the show's opening credits, and have included shots of the Square Mile and Canary Wharf financial districts, as well as the 180-metre Gherkin, HSBC Tower, One Canada Square, the Citigroup Centre, and the Shard; such locations are not used for filming unless a task involves visiting the site.
[116] As part of this agreement, all contact with the outside world is restricted to a high level – each candidate gets a limited phone call once a week, has no access to newspapers, television or internet, and is required to hand in any electronic communication equipment they have (i.e. mobiles) before they begin.
As a result, the persistent presence of the cameras, the closeness of rivals in the competition and the lack of contact with families and friends, can cause considerable pressure and stress for a candidate between entering the process, to leaving it.
[125] Following the second series of The Apprentice, the BBC announced that, as part of its early-2007 programming schedule, a celebrity version of the programme would be recorded in aid of the charity Comic Relief.
[131] A section celebrity edition of the show was made for Comic Relief two years later in 2009, with the two-part special of Comic Relief Does The Apprentice airing on 12 and 13 March 2009, with the celebrities that participated being Alan Carr, Jack Dee, Gerald Ratner, Jonathan Ross, Gok Wan, Michelle Mone, Patsy Palmer, Fiona Phillips, Carol Vorderman and Ruby Wax.
Although Ross had been suspended by the BBC over the prank telephone call row that occurred during the time that the special was being filmed, the broadcaster permitted him to appear in it due to the fact that it would be airing after his suspension had been lifted.
[135] The beginning of the third series saw the launch of a weekly podcast called The Apprenticast, and a radio programme on BBC Five Live, both hosted by former Blue Peter presenter Richard Bacon and running for thirty minutes.
For the Sport Relief edition, the celebrities that participated were Phil Tufnell, Nick Hancock, Lembit Öpik, Kelvin MacKenzie, Hardeep Singh Kohli, Lisa Snowdon, Jacqueline Gold, Louise Redknapp, Clare Balding and Kirstie Allsopp.
[152] It was also mocked in the BBC impression programme Dead Ringers, in which Sir Alan Sugar turns fired contestants into frogs and the candidates are portrayed as failed applicants of Strictly Come Dancing and Big Brother who are seeking their 15 minutes of fame.
[168] Broadsheet newspapers have given the programme a similarly positive reception, with The Daily Telegraph calling it "The most addictive show in years",[168] and The Guardian saying that it provided "A salutary lesson in aggressive buying and selling, hiring and firing".
[168] According to a report released by Ernst & Young in August 2013, the rise of popular television programmes like The Apprentice, have helped to encourage and foster an entrepreneurial culture across the UK.
[170] Talk show host Michael Parkinson also expressed misgivings about the programme, describing it as being "full of vulgar, loud people who, for all the wrong reasons, are dobbing each other in".
[172] None of the winners of the first six series of The Apprentice stayed with Sugar's companies over time, some for only a matter of weeks,[173] leading it to be criticised as "an entertainment show with no real aspect of business to it".
Former contestants Lucinda Ledgerwood and James Max have criticised the tasks on the show as being too heavily sales-focused and designed for entertainment rather than as tests of all-round business skills.
[184] When its first series was broadcast in 2005 on BBC Two, it attracted an average of 2.5 million viewers per episode,[184] with an audience share of 11% for its timeslot that allowed it to beat popular programmes being aired on rival channels at the time, such as Desperate Housewives.