A complaint often made against British television is that it hates business: profits are a dirty word, companies are run by aggressive, grasping people without any moral scruples. The latest series of The Apprentice, being shown on BBC1, provides ample support for this thesis. This is the third series of the very popular format show in which, over 12 weeks, 16 people compete to become "the apprentice" to entrepreneur Alan Sugar. Each week the competitors, divided into two teams, are given a task, and one member of the losing team is unceremoniously sacked by Sugar.
In one show, the losing competitor was quantum physicist Sophie Kain. The task her team had been given was to sell lollipops to children visiting London zoo. Kain felt uneasy with this—she felt that the lollipops were overpriced and, well, not actually good for you. She was not opposed to selling things—she favoured an alternative strategy of providing a (more expensive) face-painting service. But, as she said, she thought that she "should be making a child's day, rather than ruining a family day out."
These reservations provoked a torrent of abuse from Sugar. Expressing his view on the thought that there might be something wrong with selling things for more than they are actually worth, he said: "then shut down every retailer in the country… Welcome to real life—selling things for pounds that cost pennies." He condemned Kain's "moral angle, which is a naivety," declaring that "we are in business to make profits, we are not a benevolent society."
And that's what's so depressing about The Apprentice. It may be that the skills and values that Sugar espouses were essential for him in building up his business, but they are not likely to be much use if, for example, you work for Unilever or even talkbackThames (the makers of The Apprentice). Teambuilding, understanding complex markets, creating a sustainable business in a demanding world—there is no room for such things in The Apprentice. No wonder that many who know about business describe the show as a caricature.
But what's also depressing is that, according to its press release, the BBC believes that this programme is a "gripping insight into the machinations of the business world." It may be a gripping insight into what happens in the Sugar School of Selling, but not, surely, into anything wider. With more than 10,000 people wanting to be on the show, the producers have plenty of opportunity to choose a line-up that will guarantee entertainment. They know some contestants will behave badly and they know some will be toe-curlingly hopeless (not Sophie Kain, whose intelligence, one suspects, would fit her to grapple with some of the real challenges involved in running a big company). They know, in other words, it will deliver all of the things reality shows need to deliver to get good audiences.
Because, of course, the public aren't interested in business programmes. But is this true? In May, the Wincott awards for broadcasting were announced. The awards—I chair the jury—are given to radio and television programmes that are judged to have done most to encourage a wider public understanding of business, finance and economics. One winner was a Channel 4 programme about the private finance initiative, which was watched by 1.1m people; another was a Channel Five film about the crisis years at Marks & Spencer. (Second declaration of interest: this programme was made by the company for which I work, but I was not present at the judging.) This programme increased its viewers by 500,000 during transmission: half a million people, flitting between the scores of television channels, came upon a business programme by chance and stuck with it.
These viewing figures are not big by the standards of terrestrial television, being well short of the 6m that The Apprentice attracts. But they match the readership of the Guardian and exceed the British readership of the FT—and, you can be sure, they are reaching a different audience from those two papers. Only the most conservative and cautious of broadcasters would claim there is not room for more programmes which aim to illuminate and enlighten our understanding of business, rather than just entertain.
