http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20051220/en_tv_eo/18010
The Gift of the "Apprenti" By Joal Ryan
Tue Dec 20, 5:58 PM ET
To Donald Trump, the latest finale of The Apprentice was "good television." To NBC, it was as good as it got.
The two-hour Apprentice capper was the struggling network's highest ranked program of the TV week ended Sunday, per Nielsen Media Research. And around NBC these days, highest ranked means 13th place.
As far as The Apprentice was concerned, the showing represented the best of times (a season-high 12.8 million viewers) and the worst of times (a finale-low 12.8 million viewers, off more than 50 percent from the original boardroom blowout back in 2004).
What the season ender lacked in eyeballs, it arguably made up for in buzz. Monday's Larry King Live saw Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld share air time with "the finale controversy."
Said controversy was ignited when Donald Trump hired Rhodes Scholar Randal Pinkett to be his apprentice, and then asked Pinkett if he thought runner-up Rebecca Jarvis should be hired as well.
"It's not The Apprenti, it's The Apprentice," Pinkett explained in declining to share his title with Jarvis.
On Larry King, Trump said questions as to whether his unusual proposal was somehow about race--Pinkett is black, Jarvis is white--were "totally inappropriate." The mogul said he merely liked both candidates.
"You have to say, Larry," Trump told the CNN host, "it was good television." ...
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