You're Fired!

Confirmation has come that America's biggest television commercial will finally be pulled from the airwaves, with NBC dropping the reality TV show 'The Apprentice'.









After falling ratings on the wrong side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump's televised job interviews have been axed after six series, three of which have been shown back here in Britain.

It's in contrast to the same show fronted by Sir Alan Sugar in the UK, which has been a massive ratings success, with last year's contest taking a 27% audience share but that's probably down to how much better the UK version is.

The problem with US shows is the gross overuse of product placement. Friends was notorious for it, the American idol judges sit at their desk with bright red Coca-Cola glasses and The Apprentice is also up there as one of the worst culprits in the book.
You only have to look at the not-in-the-slightest-subtle plugs for a host of multinational companies to realise that you are watching a one-hour collection of commercial breaks. Only iRobot and Casino Royale were more obvious.
The UK version is sometimes criticised on similar grounds, even though product placement is forbidden on UK television, but the instances are limited (even if you are able to read the web address on the side of Sir Alan's rented helicopter)

Part of the problem is blamed squarly at TiVo, that TV recording system that only the American's bought, for encouraging the product placement rise.
The one perk with TiVo in the US though is that it can remove the commercial breaks, giving the viewer an ad-free experience without the need to pause and re-start the VCR. That function in the UK wasn't offered. The commercial broadcasters, understandably, refused to support the system because of the already stringent advertising laws.
As a result we quickly realised that paying £300 and then £10 a month for TiVo was a stupid idea and within 3 years, TiVo left us alone to sign up to Sky+.

I've always been a supporter of the BBC and it's public funding. Anyone who isn't would be advised to compare the two shows and still maintain the same opinion. The American's do mke some good TV shows, Friends, Scrubs, The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy; the list goes on. They also make some decent TV commercials. Unfortunately, it's sometimes quite hard to tell the difference.

Kicking Them When They're Down

Watching this years series of 'The Apprentice USA' you get a strong sense of the use of product placement that goes on in the States.








Thankfully, product placement in TV programmes has been outlawed in the UK. That's why on Coronation Street, instead of asking Betty behind the bar for a pint of Boddingtons, they'll ask for a "pint". Compare that to an episode of 'Friends' for instance, where Joey comes in yelling "Boddingtons! I'd like another frosty one of those bad boys!" It's just a different world over there where not-so-sublininal advertising is king.

So back to The Apprentice. For those of you that don't know the format of the programme, it involves two teams of job hopefuls who are sent out to each perform the same task. The team that loses, either by making the least profit or by failing to impress the judges gets sent to the board room where on of them gets sent packing to the local job centre.
After Donald Trump has sent them out on a task to flog beefburgers in Times Square or convince kids into spending their money on a minature golf course there's the indignity of the board room. Here the losing side all yell and scream at each other until one person thinks "sod this, I'm shutting up". It's then up to the person with the biggest gob to stick the knive in.
Eventually, one person gets "fired" and leaves the show.

Then is when the shows producers stick the boot in. As the losing contestent does the walk of shame to the taxi, the very forst thing they see happens to be a sign with the words "Find your perfect job at Yahoo!" illuminated infront of them.
I'm fully aware how advertising works and how companies arget certain audiences, but shurely just laughing and pointing at the loser would be more subtle?

Thankfully, our version with Sir Alan Sugar is shown on the advert-free BBC.