From the AFR today (and watch it at 7pm tonight):
"Nine Network’s celebrity version of The Apprentice performed well in its first week, drawing a bigger audience than executives at rival television networks expected.
The decision to “strip” the series – that is, to run it five nights a week in the key 7pm to 7.30pm timeslot – was questioned by some TV executives, who claimed Nine was stretching the program format too far.
But The Celebrity Apprentice drew more than 1 million viewers a night in the capital cities during its first week, capturing about 30 per cent more viewers than the repeats of The Big Bang Theory Nine was running in the timeslot.
Nine Entertainment Co chief executive David Gyngell said The Celebrity Apprentice’s audience was about the same as the first-week audience for the stripped version of The Block that ran earlier this year. The finale of The Block was the most-watched TV program so far this year, with 3.1 million capital-city viewers.
The Celebrity Apprentice is hosted by Mark Bouris (pictured), executive chairman of financial services company Yellow Brick Road , which is 19.9 per cent owned by the Nine group."
