NBC tells lifestyle guru Martha Stewart, "You're fired." Well, not really but to borrow from her own gentle phraseology, she "just doesn't fit in" to the network's future schedule, according to published reports.
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Stewart's show failed to find a large audience but both NBC and executive producer Mark Burnett said Monday that its mediocre ratings had nothing to do with the short run.
"Martha Stewart: The Apprentice" will leave the airwaves for good after next month's finale, capping a contest among 16 aspiring executives to win a $250,000 prize and a yearlong "apprenticeship" at Stewart's Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia company, according to published reports.
The plan from the "very beginning was always to produce only one cycle" of 'Apprentice' NBC said in a statement.
Yet one could say that for virtually any new show introduced in prime time. Networks rarely if ever commit to more than one season of a program before seeing the ratings.
A statement from Stewart's company suggested that doing a second round of "The Apprentice" would have caused a conflict with ongoing production of her new daytime syndicated show "Martha," which launched on September 12.
"From the time we knew we would be producing a live daily TV show with Martha as the star, it was clear that we could only do one round of 'The Apprentice,'" her company said, according to published reports.
Many TV critics have suggested Stewart's success was hurt by her post-prison image makeover as a warmer, softer personality, one who gently dismisses losing contestants on her show by telling them: "You just don't fit in."
Her soft-spoken prime-time demeanor stood in sharp contrast to the tough-brash persona of Donald Trump and his signature phrase, "You're fired."
Trump has never really been 'high' on the show, a regular caller to the 'Imus In The Morning Show,' he often was less than enthusiastic when being queried by host Don Imus. Truth be told, Trump did his best amidst constant jokes.
He did however recently suggest that his series has been diminished by Stewart's. His "Apprentice" has been averaging about 10 million viewers a week, down 4 million from last season. Stewart's "Apprentice" is drawing around 7 million viewers.
"I think there was confusion between Martha's `Apprentice' and mine, and mine continues to do well and ... the other has struggled very severely," Trump said recently on the radio. "I think it probably hurt mine and I sort of predicted that it would."
Trump's show is in production on its fifth edition. Stewart reportedly told Fortune magazine that she had hoped her show would be better that The Donald's.
"I thought I was replacing The Donald," Stewart says in the current issue of the magazine. "It was even discussed that I would be firing The Donald on the first show."
Hardly.
-- Compiled from wire reports
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