NBC, Trump make nice?

From Reuters (via Yahoo):

NBC and producers of The Apprentice will bring Donald Trump's reality TV show back from the brink of cancellation for at least one more season, industry sources said Friday.

The sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity that NBC plans to announce a renewal at an annual summer presentation to television critics on July 16, about two months after the show had appeared on the verge of prime-time extinction.

There was no official word on a deal from NBC, the Trump organization or executive producer Mark Burnett, but all three parties have acknowledged in recent weeks that negotiations on a possible return of the show were continuing.

Full story here.

Curious call considering all the complaining the network had been doing over the show's ratings and the big blowup Trump feigned after NBC's upfronts left the show off the schedule. Also curious considering it's a cruddy show and NBC decided to bring it back over much more quality fare.

Trump dumps Apprentice

From Reuters, via Yahoo:

LOS ANGELES -- Donald Trump, whose low-rated reality show The Apprentice was left off the new prime-time schedule unveiled this week by NBC, says the network can't fire him -- he quits.

The real estate mogul issued a statement on Friday saying he has informed the U.S. television network he is "moving on from The Apprentice to a major new TV venture," though he declined to elaborate.

There was no immediate comment from NBC. But his announcement appeared to end any lingering doubt that The Apprentice, which turned the self-styled tycoon into a television star and popularized the catch phrase, "You're fired," would be banished from NBC's airwaves next season.

The Apprentice debuted as a hit in 2004, averaging nearly 21 million viewers and ranking as the top-rated new U.S. TV show its first season. But the series dropped steadily in the ratings in successive years, losing nearly two-thirds of its original audience by the time it wrapped up its sixth installment last month.

Oh, well. Yes it was popular, but in the grand scheme of television it's really unimportant. Trump gets some respect from me for not letting NBC play wait-and-see with its new content only to bring Apprentice back without the treatment it may deserve. Either that or NBC gave him an out and he graciously took it.

What I really dislike about this particular article is that it continues the illusion he "created" the "catchphrase" "you're fired." It makes me nauseous...