Donald Trump claims NBC can't get enough of his The Apprentice reality series despite its still declining ratings.
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"NBC actually is thinking of doing The Apprentice and [The] Celebrity Apprentice together in one season," he told The New York Post in a Monday report.
Trump has boasted about The Apprentice before only to have his claims later prove to be untrue.
In June 2006, The Donald announced that NBC had already renewed The Apprentice for a seventh season -- however NBC never formally confirmed the statement.
This was followed by a two-month public feud that began when NBC left The Apprentice off its 2007-2008 schedule and Trump responded by publicly proclaiming that he was "moving on" and quitting the show.
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Following Trump's statement NBC reiterated it was undecided on what do with The Apprentice until Ben Silverman -- a reality television producer who had previously worked with Burnett on NBC's The Restaurant in 2003 -- was named NBC's new programming chief.
Shortly thereafter, Silverman asked Trump and Burnett for a one-week extension on the network's option to renew The Apprentice for a seventh season. Trump and Burnett agreed to give NBC an additional week, and while the new deadline had passed without a formal announcement, the parties eventually announced plans for a celebrity The Apprentice edition.
This led Trump to shoot his mouth off some more -- this time about the show's celebrity cast, as he boasted that in addition to still-ongoing talks with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, Jim Cramer, Carmen Electra, Jeff Gordon, Tony Hawk, Naomi Judd, George Foreman, Danica Patrick, and Joan Rivers had all already committed to being part of the show's cast.
However two days after Trump gushed about his "eye-popping" list of participants for the competition, his publicist was forced to publicly deny his boss' earlier claims and instead stated "none of those names are confirmed or signed." A decidedly D-List roster of celebrities was later announced.
The Celebrity Apprentice is currently in the midst of its second season and NBC has previously aired seven non-celebrity The Apprentice editions, including Fall 2005's The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.
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Last night's two-hour The Celebrity Apprentice broadcast averaged 7.03 million viewers according to Nielsen's preliminary fast national ratings data.
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio