The Apprentice and chasing fame

It ended in tears as predicted. But who will be left crying?

I was always a fan of The Apprentice in the early years.

Maybe not entirely for the right reasons, but I enjoyed the concept of the show and could see why Alan Sugar initially launched it as he tried to attract talented individuals to showcase how exciting a career in business could actually be.

On a basic level it was an hour of entertainment filled with people who think they know it all, being made to look foolish and incompetent and being shown in their true light.

Admittedly a handful of people did stand out as having some business acumen, but the comments some of them made will entertain me for years to come.

However as the different series came and went, it became increasingly obvious that some people weren't really interested in a business career at all. After all, if they were destined for business greatness, surely they would have made it by now?

I began to wonder if it was for the perceived 'fame and fortune' that came with being on a reality TV series?

I certainly saw this in Series 10 when Stella English and her peers landed on our screens. Who can forget Stuart Baggs? (Where is he now?)

I blogged the whole of that series because I couldn't believe half of what I was seeing to be honest, and I included a warning about the choice of winner in my last blog on the subject, based on some remarks made in the final boardroom dust up which I thought were below the belt.

As we all know, English tried, unsuccessfully, to sue Lord Sugar and Viglen in a Tribunal case of constructive dismissal. But the case was thrown out last week, leaving English's reputation in tatters.

It didn't exactly do Viglen's any good either, as chief executive Bordan Tkachuk told me last week - in his words "when someone throws mud, sometimes it can stick unfairly" and it must have been an unsettling time for all Viglen staff and management as such a high profile case played out in public.

I wouldn't want to even begin to guess at English's motivations for taking Sugar and Viglen to tribunal - from interviews Sugar has done he is convinced it was to extract money from him and get that much wanted 15 minutes of fame.

This obsession with 'being famous' really is a scourge on society in my opinion - people just don't seem to want to work hard to get to their chosen career destination, instead some think that by appearing on some TV show, they will instantly get a glittering career in the media or 'be on TV'.

For those of us that have worked in the media for many years, worked our way up and learned our trade through bitter experience, to see some people breeze in and land well-paid magazine or newspaper columns or even poorly executed TV presenting jobs is galling to say the least. But that seems to be what everyone wants these days. Instant fame and fortune.

In the real world it just doesn't happen.

English, in pursuing this pointless case, has now damaged her future career considerably and I'm sure she regrets giving up her previous job in an investment bank now. Would you employ someone like that? I wouldn't if I had a business.

But ultimately what effect will this have on Lord Sugar and Viglen? It can't have done either of them any favours at the end of the day, and it makes me wonder if further series of The Apprentice would do more harm than good.

Personally I'd be happy to see all reality TV shows axed for good. The sooner the better.