TV3's The Apprentice more popular than RTÉ's news
10 November 09

TV3 is trouncing RTÉ in the battle for young audiences, thanks to their hit reality show The Apprentice.

The Apprentice is pulling in over 450,000 viewers every Monday night as people tune in to follow the shenanigans of Breffny Morgan, aka 'The Breffmeister', and his fellow contestants as they fight it out to become Bill Cullen's apprentice.

Figures show that more people are watching it than RTÉ's main evening news, a feat virtually unheard of in the history of Irish broadcasting.

And now the follow-up show, 'The Apprentice: You're Fired' presented by Brendan O'Connor, is giving Pat Kenny's current affairs programme 'The Frontline' a serious run for its money.

Despite pulling out their best entertainment talent such as Baz Ashmawy, Jason Byrne, Neil Delamare, and Karl Spain, RTÉ's original new shows - Baz' Culture Clash and The Republic of Telly are attracting abysmal numbers in comparison to the powerful draw of The Apprentice.

A source said: "This is a huge crisis for RTÉ. Between The Apprentice on Mondays and The X Factor getting huge ratings for TV3 on two weekend nights, that makes three nights when TV3 is making serious inroads on RTÉ's audience."

Meanwhile, Larry Bass, CEO of Screentime ShinAwiL, the company which makes The Apprentice, said: "It's fantastic. I'm very proud of what the show has done for Irish television. It adds a new dimension in terms of competition and competition is good for everybody. We've set the benchmark now and we plan to improve on it."

He added: "The fact that the figures for The Apprentice: You're Fired are even stronger than the numbers that watched the main show last year is brilliant. It's down to a hard-working production team and on-screen talent."

Source: www.independent.ie