The War of 18-49, The Apprentice

THE APPRENTICE (NBC)

Scheduling history: While reality franchise The Apprentice has aired seasons on Monday and Sunday, the show was at its strongest by a wide margin in its first few seasons, which aired Thursday. The show moved back to Thursday for the first celebrity edition, but most of the celebrity seasons have aired on Sunday. The most recent celebrity season in 2015 aired between The Voice seasons on Monday.

See (who saw) how it all began: It began really big, with 18.49 million viewers and a 9.1/22 in the demo on 1/8/04, and it got bigger in week two, rising to a 10.0 demo. It would then drop back to a 9.3 two weeks later and remain in the 9's for the majority of season 1.

The best of times: Season 1 was the biggest, and it's not even remotely close, but it's still fairly admirable that, while it started as an out-of-the-box hit, it still built up and had its best run at the end of the first season.  Three of its four telecasts with double-digit demos came in the last four weeks of season 1, including an enormous 13.6/34 in the demo on 4/15/04. And while The Apprentice is (very deservedly) not lumped in with the American Idols and Survivors of the world as a reality powerhouse, that 13.6 number is higher than all but two Idol finales and all but the first two Survivor finales.

The worst of times: I've done a lot of these posts now, but except for maybe a select couple serialized dramas, I haven't seen anything fall as hard and as fast as The Apprentice. The show averaged double digits in the first season, but by season 6 (which was only three calendar years later) the average was below a 3.0 in the demo!  That's a drop of over 70%. Then another three calendar years later, the return of the non-celebrity edition dropped more than 50% from those numbers. Now, the series low (a 0.9 demo on Halloween night in 2010) is less than one-fifteenth of the series high demo for that season 1 finale. That's the kind of drop you don't see too often. We're talking about a franchise that went from just about the very top of the primetime totem pole to just about the very bottom.

Then vs. now: To NBC's credit, the celebrity version did revitalize the show on some level. It really took till the fifth celebrity season for the show to drop significantly below where "original recipe" was when first axed in 2007, which is impressive considering how fast the show plummeted for awhile. But in fall 2010 we saw just how dead the "original recipe" version of the show really was, and it probably won't be seen again. That disaster didn't seem to hurt the celebrity edition, which in 2011 became the first season in Apprentice history to increase from the previous one (unless you count the creation of Celebrity Apprentice in 2008). A big downturn in 2012 and 2013 again had The Apprentice potentially knocking on death's door. It pulled off another big resurgence with its return from a year off in 2015, but the loss of its host to the political world hurt the 2017 season. It's back into limbo for now.

The Apprentice:

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Timeslot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Spring 2004	Thursday 9:00	9.78		4.9	13.6
2	Fall 2004		7.53		5.4	8.1
3	Spring 2005		6.43	-34%	4.8	7.4
4	Fall 2005		4.88	-35%	3.7	5.7
5	Spring 2006	Monday 9:00	3.84	-40%	3.3	4.3
6	Spring 2007	Sun 9:00, Sun 10:00	2.86	-26%	2.3	4.1
7	Fall 2010	Thursday 10:00	1.35	-53%	0.9	1.6		F

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now14	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Spring 2004	241	megahit	4.55		121	336	224	336
2	Fall 2004	185	big hit	3.49		133	199	197	192
3	Spring 2005	158	big hit	2.98	-34%	118	182	182	155
4	Fall 2005	120	solid	2.26	-35%	91	140	113	140
5	Spring 2006	94	marginal	1.78	-40%	81	106	96	96
6	Spring 2007	77	marginal	1.44	-19%	62	110	110	86
7	Fall 2010	53	flop	1.01	-30%	36	63	59	63

The Celebrity Apprentice:

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Winter 2008	Thursday 9:00	3.62		3.1	4.5	detail
2	Spring 2009	Sunday 9:00	3.15	-13%	2.8	3.9	detail
3	Spring 2010		Sunday 9:00	2.80	-11%	2.3	3.4		detail
4	Spring 2011		Sunday 9:00	2.82	+1%	2.4	3.1	detail	B+
5	Spring 2012		Sunday 9:00	2.02	-28%	1.8	2.6	detail	D-
6	Spring 2013		Sunday 9:00	1.60	-21%	1.3	1.8	detail	D+
7	Winter 2015	Monday 8:00	1.91		1.4	2.4	detail	A
8	Winter 2017		Monday 8:00	1.08		0.9	1.3	detail	C-

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now17	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Winter 2008	109	solid	1.34		94	136	136	136
2	Spring 2009	105	solid	1.28	-4%	93	130	130	103
3	Spring 2010	99	marginal	1.22	-5%	82	121	114	121
4	Spring 2011	111	solid	1.36	+12%	94	122	110	118
5	Spring 2012	86	marginal	1.05	-23%	76	110	110	93
6	Spring 2013	76	marginal	0.93	-11%	62	85	81	71
7	Winter 2015	113	solid	1.39		83	143	143	101
8	Winter 2017	89	marginal	1.08		73	106	106	73

For more on The War of 18-49, my look at the history of primetime TV's veteran shows, see the Index.