For me, the most painful part of watching Donald Trump pretend to run for president was seeing how completely ignorant the political press chose to be about his claims of vast success for The Celebrity Apprentice. Time after time, Trump would brag about how his show was one of the biggest hits on television, and all these wise Washington insiders would pass that on as gospel. Apparently it never occurred to anyone at the Washington Post or New York Times to glance at the ratings charts, where they would have learned that the most recent season of The Celebrity Apprentice was ranked number 32 in 18-49 viewers and number 42 with all viewers. (The non-celebrity version in the fall did even worse, ranking at 92 in 18-49 — tied with America’s Funniest Home Videos — and 113 in viewers overall.)
Now Trump is back in the news, claiming (well, “sources close to the show” are claiming) in Rupert Murdoch’s NY Post that he’s got a huge new deal from NBC. According to the breathless article, already making the rounds on political blogs, the deal is worth $160 million over two years to Trump and Mark Burnett, and Trump himself will be getting $65 million per year.
Excuse me?
Let’s stop and do what political(and in this case, business) reporters seem to be incapable of doing — look at the claim.
First of all, if Trump is getting $65 million a year, that means he’ll take home $130 million of the total $160 million. He’ll make more than four times as much as the show’s co-owner Mark Burnett. Does that sound even close to believable?
But let’s say that’s true. That means NBC is paying $160 million in salary for these two men, divided over 22 episodes. Heck, let’s be generous and say they’ll do two full 13-episode cycles per year, so it’s 52 episodes. Do the math — that’s $3 million per episode just for Trump and Burnett. Add production costs — is $1.5 million per episode unreasonable? I don’t think so — and NBC is paying close to what CBS pays for Hawaii Five-O(and the same as what HBO pays for Game of Thrones for a show that can’t crack the top 30. And more importantly, a show that has no backend potential whatsoever. CBS just sold Five-O to TNT for more than $2 million per episode, HBO will be selling DVDs and downloads of Game of Thrones as long as there are young men who like swords and breasts — Celebrity Apprentice doesn’t even rerun on the network.
I’m sure Donald Trump makes lots of money off The Celebrity Apprentice. This article claims he’s going to be the hightest-paid reality star on television. Yup, more than Simon Cowell made on American Idol, which actually is the hit the Donald wants us to think his show is.
And the geniuses in the press will continue to repeat it without ever bothering to check. Because, you know, it’s only television…
