The Apprentice (American TV series) season 4
fourth season of the US TV series The Apprentice
The Apprentice 4 is the fourth season of The Apprentice, with Donald Trump as the executive producer and host. The show was aired on Thursday nights at 9 p.m. on NBC and started September 22, 2005.
This was the first season of the show not to place in the Top 20 Nielsen Ratings; it averaged #38 with 11.01 million viewers.
Starting with this season, frequent boardroom adviser George H. Ross began to lessen his involvement with the show, with The Apprentice first season winner Bill Rancic effectively sharing the role with him throughout this and the following season.
Candidates
Unhappy with both the choice of candidates and the "street smarts" vs. "book smarts" premise from the preceding season, Trump went to the auditions and hand-picked 17 of the 18 candidates in season 4. In addition to candidate handpicking, Trump decided to go back to the premise of men versus women (there was eventually corporate restructuring). The all-women team named their corporation Capital Edge while the all-men team named their corporation Excel.
Recalling how some of the contestants in season 3 such as Michael Tarshi and Tana Goertz abused their exemptions from getting fired by choosing to be lazy instead of continuing to work hard on the tasks they were given, Trump made a new rule for exemptions in this season.
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