Have you thought that possibly it's the other way round?

Nobody who is genuinely successful in business or a successful entrepreneur is going to go on the apprentice, because they have made it already. Women and people of different ethnicities are underrepresented in the boardrooms of corporations, therefore there is a greater pool of untapped talent. White middle class straight males know there are no barriers to them getting the big positions and are therefore less likely to apply if they have a geniune talent for business, so you end up with failures like Rory or Paul applying.

Actually you are wrong. That's 7.9% who are from non white ethnic groups and doesn't include any white non british who make up a reasonably big percentage too. Ethnicity is not just skin colour.

I think what you are saying is that the apprentice does not follow the quota system employed at the top end of business i.e. 100% white, middle-class, straight, male, the world in which anybody else is a token.

In the population as a whole 50% + are female, if we assume half the rest are middle class, 10% are gay, and 10% are from ethnic minorities, the group you refer to are only 1 in 5 of the real population, In that respect over the three series the apprentice has it about right. It is the average boardroom that ignores merit and does not reflect reality

Its much more likely that the people who apply to the Apprentice are those who do not think they will achieve their ambitions under the more usual routes. That would rule out the conventional white, middle class male and (to a lesser extent the) white middle class female. So the line up may be representative of the applicants.

Yes, but the stats backed up my interpretation of it, rather than what you would like it to mean.

I didn't divide it out in the way that you have. I did it a much fairer way.

Or it's just the BBC being politically correct (which is my view on it).