Business Education 2.0: How Celebrity Entrepreneurs in TV Business Formats teach the new Dogs old Tricks

An increasingly prominent TV format type for both public-service and private broadcasters is the so-called Business Entertainment Format. This format either depicts business leaders in their quest to address problems in their own or others’ companies or frames game shows around business challenges. Examples include Undercover Boss , The Restaurant , Hell’s Kitchen , The Apprentice or Dragons’ Den and their numerous global adaptations and spin-offs. A common element of business entertainment formats are celebrity entrepreneurs that act as protagonists who help the businesses to make a turn-around, who as judges select candidates for jobs or who decide which business(es) they want to invest money in. The celebrity entrepreneurs typically are business moguls in the country in which a particular local adaptation airs. Their previous business success provides the necessary credibility for their role on the show. While some of the entrepreneurs have achieved star status before being on the show most entrepreneurs are known mostly in their business communities. Provided the format is successful in their respective markets the entrepreneurs become famous and well-known to a larger audience. The most notorious example is Donald Trump who was recently elected US President widely leveraging on his (inter-)national prominence through his TV personality. The broadcasters claim that their business formats not only entertain, but educate the general public in how (not) to run a business, particularly in product development, marketing & sales as well as general management skills, such as project management. The celebrity entrepreneurs assume the role of business educators through commenting on the performance of the candidates and suggesting potential improvements. This paper investigates the Anglo-Saxon versions (US, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand) of the business entertainment format The Apprentice . In this reality game show a group of aspiring businessmen and women competes for a well-paid top management position in the show host’s company. The UK version competition is now about winning a £250,000 investment towards a business created by of the candidate with the show host holding half of the equity. The US version moved towards celebrity contestants who compete for winning money for their favourite charity (the show has been renamed Celebrity Apprentice ). Candidates are split into two teams that are then given a series of business-themed tasks designed to test their skills in salesmanship, negotiation, marketing, requisitioning, leadership, teamwork, and organisation. During the execution of their task, each team is followed by an observer who records information on performance, mistakes, etc. After completion of a task the teams report back to the "boardroom" where after reviewing the results a candidate from the losing team is fired. When only four or five candidates remain in the process these undergo a set of very challenging individual interviews with the host’s “trusted advisors”. Finally, one of the candidates is declared the winner. The aim of this paper is to explore the innovative educational elements of the format behind The Apprentice , such as the role of hosts and their assistants, the topic areas and business challenges of the tasks, the procedures of the boardroom meetings as well as the final interviews. Through the analysis of the business elements the role models set by the hosts and their assistants during the tasks and the interviews become apparent as well as the business frameworks provided through their comments. As a result, we will learn about the surprisingly different ways of doing business and the underlying cultural values even within such a culturally close environment as a set of Anglo-Saxon countries. In part one the paper introduces business entertainment TV formats and their fundamentals. It then analyses the educational elements in Anglo-Saxon versions (US, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand) of the business entertainment format The Apprentice . Detailed analyses of different versions of this TV formats are prerequisites to understanding format developments in the context of educating the general public. Based on the discoveries the paper derives success factors of innovations in business entertainment TV formats and devises implications for media management theory and practice. The merits of this innovative research are twofold. Such an in-depth analysis into the educational elements of a business entertainment TV format has previously not been conducted. Existing research on TV entertainment formats focuses primarily on the enjoyment, recreation and diversion elements and less on education, except for children. Furthermore, the results can serve as excellent input for media and entertainment companies in their TV format innovation processes.