The Apprentice (British TV series) series 3

The third series of British reality television series The Apprentice was broadcast in the UK on BBC One, from 28 March to 13 June 2007. Following favourable ratings of the previous two series, the BBC moved the programme from its original home on BBC Two to BBC One, with its companion discussion show The Apprentice: You're Fired! being reallocated to BBC Two from BBC Three. For this series, Alan Sugar commented that its production would include "tougher tasks and better people" as a means of making the programme stand out from other shows like Big Brother. Alongside the usual twelve episodes, the series also featured two specials – the first, titled "Beyond the Boardroom", was aired on 3 June prior to the eleventh episode; the second, titled "Why I Fired Them", was aired on 10 June prior to the broadcast of the series finale.
The series involved 16 candidates, with Simon Ambrose crowned the eventual winner. Excluding the specials, the series averaged around 5.62 million viewers during its broadcast. The third series saw Sugar face accusations of sexism from several groups, later denying these claims.

Series overview

With viewing figures proving favourable since the programme's debut in 2005, the BBC decided that The Apprentice needed to be more accessible to a "mainstream" audience. In discussions between them and the production company, it was agreed that the show be relocated to BBC One, retaining its scheduling arrangements, while also requiring that its sister show, You're Fired, be moved over to BBC Two. Work on the new series included Alan Sugar conceiving of tougher tasks, and recruiting more diverse candidates. Sugar believed that by doing this it would keep the show fresh, and thus avoid it becoming just another version of existing reality programmes at the time, such as Big Brother. An example of this was having mixed gender teams from the beginning of the process, rather than first mixing them a couple of weeks in.
One of the biggest changes made by the production staff, besides the change of channel for episode broadcast, concerned the firing of candidates. With the show attracting a far greater number of applications for participation, resulting in staff conducting many more interviews, auditions and assessments, the decision was made to increase the number of candidates that formed the final line-up, while still limiting the series to twelve episodes. This change allowed Sugar to fire more than one candidate at any time before the Interviews stage. 16 applicants took part in the third series, with one team named Stealth, and the other named Eclipse. It is the first series to feature a candidate leaving the process despite having won a place in the next stage – the decision by Katie Hopkins to depart towards the end of the Interviews stage garnered considerable criticism over sexual discrimination in the aftermath of the episode's broadcast.
Of those who took part, Simon Ambrose would become the eventual winner of the series, and go on to work at Sugar's property company Amsprop, overseeing development projects, before leaving Sugar's employment in 2010 to focus on setting up a restaurant business. The move to BBC One proved to be a reasonable decision, as it led to a further rise in viewing figures for the programme during its broadcast, with 6.8 million viewers watching the series finale.

Performance chart

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Episodes

Criticism

Sexual discrimination accusation
Towards the end of the third series, several organisations - including the Trades Union Congress, the Liberal Democrats, The Equal Opportunities Commission and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation - criticised Alan Sugar for perceived sexual discrimination. The accusations stemmed from the boardroom segment in the eleventh episode, regarding Sugar's line of questioning towards the female semi-finalists, Katie Hopkins and Kristina Grimes. While he probed them about their child-care arrangements and how they'd feel relocating their families if they were to win the competition, fellow male semi-finalist Tre Azam was not similarly questioned, with the groups accusing Sugar of being in breach of the 1976 Sex Discrimination act. However, Sugar denied the allegations of sexism, citing that Hopkins and Grimes had been asked about child-care because both had disclosed in their applications for the programme that each was a single mother at the time and that Tre Azam was not asked the same question because he had made clear in his application that, while he was a father, he was also married. In addition, Sugar argued further that Hopkins' decision to decline an offer to proceed into the final had been purely her own decision, and not influenced by anyone else or her status as a single mother.

Ratings

Official episode viewing figures are from BARB.

Episode no.	Airdate	Viewers	BBC One weekly ranking
1	28 March 2007	4.50	19
2	4 April 2007	4.98	16
3	11 April 2007	5.31	17
4	18 April 2007	5.68	10
5	25 April 2007	5.46	14
6	2 May 2007	5.68	11
7	9 May 2007	5.92	9
8	16 May 2007	6.05	11
9	23 May 2007	4.99	18
10	30 May 2007	5.23	12
11	6 June 2007	6.60	8
12	13 June 2007	7.09	5

Specials

Episode	Airdate	Viewers	BBC Two weekly ranking
Beyond the Boardroom	3 June 2007	1.62	22
Why I Fired Them	10 June 2007	2.46	8