... in reality ratings war..i apprentice insider's view:

They don't care about the contestants. They look for cracks and expose them

Let me start by saying that producers have a job to do. That job is to win ratings – that's how they are judged. And from the success of the various reality TV shows, most of them have done their job exceptionally well.

But in achieving their goals and winning the ratings war, what price is being paid, and by whom? My answer is simple. A huge price is being paid by the contestants.

From my experiences on The Apprentice, these producers do not care one iota about the welfare of the contestants nor about how their manipulation of the edits could impact on a life. If anything, I think they look for cracks and do whatever they can to expose them. They build you up to break you down. That's what makes "good TV".

We had daily contact with the producers on The Apprentice. They were continuously looking for angles, contriving arguments, encouraging people to fight and cry. They would interview us and tell us what other contestants were allegedly saying about us to get a reaction. Whenever someone would start to argue, break down or cry, the producers and cameras would swarm around like bees.

I remember one producer at an after-show get together laughing about how a contestant was in tears because they were missing their children. With great amusement, he was telling us how he had then cut to another contestant ridiculing people who could not focus on business because of emotional problems. He ended with: "It's hilarious, wait until you see it."

I assume another producer was laughing just as much when he edited the sales pitch I gave to Paul McKenna. Rather than show my speech in full because it was too boring, they edited it to make it look like I was so awestruck that I could not string two sentences together. Imagine knowing the truth, but millions of people believing what they were seeing. Imagine the thought of potential employers or in my case, business clients, thinking you were completely incompetent. It looked so real even my family thought it was the truth. Even now when I meet people, they seem surprised I can pull more than a few sentences together.

I think the pressure can be unbearable for some. In The Apprentice, some loved the idea of being seen by millions while others cowered at the thought. It is the latter, the most vulnerable,who were most exposed by the producers.

You know there will be millions of people watching every move you make, every decision you take. And yet you know the producers are pushing you down a certain avenue. You are being set up to fail. Wherever they could, they would hold us up to delay us so we were under more pressure as time ticked away. Everything is stacked against you. What's worse is that people believe what they see.

I was so disgusted at how the producers manipulated everything in the first series of The Apprentice that I refused to watch it after the sixth episode. I refuse to watch any reality TV programme because I have seen that nothing is as it is made to appear. "

Article in today's independent by Raj Dhonota who was a contestant in the first series of The Apprentice in 2005

and this happened in the relatively low key first series..
shows how we the viewers and the candidates are manipulated...

Adam Hosker (Series 3) had an online diary and says much the same with examples. I think Simon Smith (Series 4) also has reported on this.

IMO Series 5 has been very tame. If this is the worst they can make them look, they can't be that bad to begin with.

They've had a pretty good go Lorraine!

That article it taking things way too seriously imo. It's just a piece of reality tv. No serious employer would take the performance of a candidate on the show as evidence of his/her real-life capabilities.

Do you mean the show's producers or the tabloids?
The latter being disgusting.

There has been a lot more PR 'spoilers' fed out there about what we might see coming up. Usually they turn out to be about nothing. That's them trying to up the ratings.

How long has it taken him to come to that conclusion?

All the contestants know the score.....the Apprentice is just an upmarket, Big Brother spin off.....and we all know how the BB producers ensure house-mates start to p*ss each other off......Put them under pressure and then deprive them of sleep.....and in the case of BB , put them on basic food rations....or in the old days; give them booze....lots of it.

Its more obvious now that perhaps it was in the the first apprentice series... but somehow I think the series has lost something along the way and and is just seen as a something to pull in the viewers..

Agree with this.

Surely anyone who applies to be on the Apprentice will have watched previous series, done their research & know exactly what can happen to them & how they are likely to be manipulated, edited & made to look complete idiots in some cases, all for the sake of increasing the TV ratings.

I can't believe that the applicants are so naive now to think any differently. If they know all this & are still happy to be on the show to achieve their fleeting chance at "fame", then all well & good but they shouldn't then go bleating about how it was unfair, they were manipulated etc etc. They know what they are letting themselves in for & have to accept that there are good & bad outcomes. The same goes for all reality TV shows.

Why would anyone who "cowered at the thought" of being watched by millions, apply to go on a television show in the first place?!

I think most people are aware that the show is heavily edited; they are aware that it's a tv show above all, and that a search for a new apprentice comes a long way behind. I watch it for entertainment, I certainly don't believe everything happens as it is presented to us, and neither does anyone else I know.

That's a very interesting article - I remember Raj very well from series 1. He came across as completely incompetent and inarticulate - didn't occur to me until I read this that that might not be how he really was. I always wondered why Siralan didn't fire him sooner, so I think there must b e truth in what he's saying. Feel awful for misjudging him now.

To be fair Raj was on series 1. He probably didn't know the score then. It was advertisied as a BBC 2 business show - very different from BB on Channel 4.

It is serious though.
It's a serious business.

A viewer may say it's just anything. But that's the viewer's perspective. It's an uncaring one which doesn't feel the emotions which may be felt by somebody who is the subject.

So it's not 'just a piece of reality TV'. it's a fiction where some viewers won't care because they're being fed a different reality to what a person on television is really feeling, their reality.

The Susan Boyle thing springs to mind where she's in a mental hospital now.

It's not even good enough to say that people know what they're in for either. Because they really don't.
Evidently they don't if the viewer who may be a potential contestant the following year has no empathy for the people involved and doesn't care because it doesn't affect them.
I think that at least the viewer can listen to the real experience of somebody involved and try to gain more understanding rather than declaring that they know what's real because they've seen it on telly in their front room.

Otherwise the viewer is just absolving themselves from responsibility and refusing to see reality because they believe that they are more important and the feelings of people involved are irrelevant to them.
If the viewer is trying to tell a contestant what's real or not then it just demonstrates that they know nothing about the reality, don't want reality, but are yet at the same time trying to convince themselves that fiction is reality.

You can't equate your own experience to the experience of a contestant and tell them what the reality is.You just can't.
Well you can, but you'd only be denying yourself from reality.

How can they?
How could anybody know if they're researching a heavily edited show?
They'll probably see the 'bad' guys or the 'idiots' and think that they won't be like them because they're more like the 'good' ones.

But when they are actually experiencing the reality of being there they suddenly find that they're the fall guy even though they haven't been like how they've portrayed.

I've seen absolutely loads of forum members over the years say 'They know what they're in for', as though it kind of excuses the viewer from caring about fellow people.
But unless these forum posters have been on a reality show before themselves then they simply aren't qualified to make that judgement.

I've seen that to and it's a cretinous line of argument.

Police officers know that they will be spat at, attacked and in some cases murdered but you'd hardly say: "Well, you knew that happens so you can't complain" and it would most certainly not excuse the perpetrators of such abuse.

Unfortunately, wave a TV camera around and some people lose all sense of logic.

Sounds pretty awful.

Just seen again the shot from the baby task were they are lined up being told the task.
The sight of Siralun in those little blue booties removes all dignity from any of them.
What next series, bunny ears?

http://tv.sky.com/the-apprentice-week-11-our-verdict pic 10 in the slide show

Good God. If you want to take it all so seriously, that's your perogative. I don't, that's mine.

Of all the forums on DS, the Apprentice one seems to have more than its fair share of people telling others what and how they should think.

Well here's Janet Street Porter on reality TV. I think the first reality TV show in the UK was the mid 90's Living Soap. I think JSP was at the helm at that time (BBC2 Yoof slot). So she's been on both sides of the camera (best behind it?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...e-1695319.html

I wonder if one of the producers mentioned in either article were asked why they do these things they would answer "this is what the viewing public likes?"

So do we bear some of the blame?