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Celebrity Apprentice on the cards

After Nine buys a share of Mark Bouris' firm Yellow Brick Road, all signs point to another series of The Apprentice.

Rumours about a new series of The Apprentice Australia are firming, following weekend reports that Nine is eyeing an edition of Celebrity Apprentice.

Yesterday Nine formalised its purchase of 19.9% of wealth management firm Yellow Brick Road, headed up by Mark Bouris, who fronted the first season of the series in 2009.

Nine will buy the shareholding through its subsidiary Pink Platypus for $12.98 million, paying half in cash on settlement and half in discounted advertising over five years.

Nine Entertainment CEO David Gyngell said “We will utilise the reach and penetration of Nine Entertainment Co. to spread the message of Yellow Brick Road across the community.”

Nine will also promote Yellow Brick Road through “creative television programming.”

You can bet that means another series of The Apprentice with Bouris at the helm -he is also good friends with Gyngell.

This follows on from FremantleMedia Australia, which produced the series, sealing a deal with Mark Burnett’s production company One Three Television for localised versions of his formats.

Elements of The Apprentice are dangerously close to MasterChef storytelling, especially the group challenges.

In 2009 Bouris told TV Tonight, “I’d be interested in doing it again.

“I guess it depends on the ratings and whether they make any money out of it. That’s their call but it’s not really my game. I was doing it to have the experience of it and promoting Yellow Brick Road where I could, although I haven’t really done it in a cheesy way.

“If Nine came to me and said ‘Would I do it again?’ the answer to that is ‘Yes.’

Source: Financial Standard,

15 Responses

  1. Celebs in Australia hmmm. The interesting ones wouldn’t do this show. America attracts some high profile and diverse personalities. Dancing with the stars are featuring wags, soap stars and socialites hardly classed as celebs. Everyday folk would make better viewing over here

  2. I really liked the Aussie Apprentice but all shows with a ‘Celebrity’ appendage have been so bad I’ve wanted to hurt puppies.
    (Not really, animal rights fans!!!).

  3. I thought about what celebrities (Australian) celebrities would be on a Celeb version of the Aus version of this show! Mainly channel Nine people…. Kerri-Anne haha and anyone affiliated with the network ie through magazines, tv hosts, radio hosts etc… it would bring something to the table. I’d love to see a Celeb and Normal version return to Nine…. then get put on really late, shifted hours each week and then thrown on GO! GO! would be the way to go with this show! Yee Ha!!

  4. May force Channel Seven to sdhow more up to date series of The Apprentice UK, seeing as we are seeing Series 2 here again, and series 6 or 7 has started showing in the UK. Also I agree with the comment dont make it Celebs normal people are far more interesting !

  5. I loved the first season – please don’t ruin it with d list ” celebrities” – normal people are so much more interesting and have a greater propensity to get into conflict with other contestants because there is more to play for. I know celebrity apprentice works well in the us – but that’s because American celebrities are crazy and have huge personalities – ours?……not so much….

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