The Apprentice (American TV series)
Season Winner Winner 's Project Timeslot Season Premiere Season Finale TV Season Ranking Viewers ( in millions ) Finale Viewers ( in millions )
1 Bill Rancic Trump Tower Chicago Thursday 9:00 pm January 8 , 2004 April 15 , 2004 2003-04 7 20.7 28.1
2 Kelly Perdew Trump Place Thursday 9:00 pm September 9 , 2004 December 16 , 2004 2004-05 11 16.1 16.9
3 Kendra Todd Palm Beach Mansion Thursday 9:00 pm January 20 , 2005 May 19 , 2005 2004-05 15 14.0 14.0
4 Randal Pinkett Trump Entertainment Thursday 9:00 pm September 22 , 2005 December 15 , 2005 2005-06 38 11.0 12.8
5 Sean Yazbeck Trump SoHo Monday 9:00 pm February 27 , 2006 June 5 , 2006 2005-06 51 9.7 11.3
6 Stefanie Schaeffer Cap Cana Sunday 10:00 pm January 7 , 2007 April 22 , 2007 2006-07 75 7.5 10.6
10 Brandy Kuentzel VIP Golf Tournament Thursday 10:00 pm September 16 , 2010 December 9 , 2010 2010-11 113 4.7 4.5
Statistics by season
Seasonal rankings ( based on average total viewers per episode ) of The Apprentice on NBC .
The Apprentice is an American documentary reality television program that judges the business skills of a group of contestants. It has run in various formats across fifteen seasons since January 2004 on NBC. The Apprentice was created by British-born American television producer Mark Burnett. Billed as The Ultimate Job Interview, the show features fourteen to eighteen business people who compete over the course of a season, with usually one contestant eliminated per episode. Contestants are split into two corporations (teams), with one member from each volunteering as a project manager on each new task. The corporations complete business-related tasks such as selling products, raising money for charity, or creating an advertising campaign, with one corporation selected as the winner based on objective measures and subjective opinions of the host and his advisors who monitor the teams' performance on tasks. The losing corporation attends a boardroom meeting with the show's host and their advisors to break down why they lost and determine who contributed the least to the team. Episodes ended with the host eliminating one contestant from the competition, with the words You're fired! Seven of the show's seasons featured aspiring, but otherwise unknown, businesspersons who would vie for the show's prize, a one-year $250,000 starting contract to promote one of Donald Trump's properties. There have also been eight seasons of The Celebrity Apprentice since 2008. In this format, several celebrities would participate to win money for their chosen charities, with the final prize being a large donation to the celebrity's charity and the title of Apprentice. A reboot of this format, The New Celebrity Apprentice, aired in January 2017.