The Apprentice (British TV series) series 2

The second series of British reality television series The Apprentice (UK) was broadcast in the UK on BBC Two, from 22 February to 10 May 2006. Following the success of the previous series, the BBC commissioned additional episodes of the programme, along with ordering the creation of a new companion discussion programme titled The Apprentice: You're Fired!, which was aimed at being aired on BBC Three alongside the main programme's broadcast schedule. A special titled "Tim in the Firing Line", focusing on Tim Campbell's life after winning the first series, aired on 19 February 2006 and preceded this series' premiere. Alongside the standard twelve episodes of the series, it is the only series to not feature any specials being aired alongside its broadcast.

Fourteen candidates took part in the second series, with Michelle Dewberry becoming the overall winner. Excluding the special, the series averaged around 4.43 million viewers during its broadcast. A year after it had concluded, a candidate later raised a complaint against the BBC for their portrayal in the second series, which was refuted due to contradicting evidence from the broadcaster and production staff.

Series overview

Following favourable ratings and viewing figures for the first series, the BBC commissioned additional episodes of The Apprentice, with Alan Sugar, Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford returning to assume their roles within the programme and aid in production of the second series. One request made of production staff by the broadcaster was that a companion discussion show be created to air alongside it. This led to the creation of The Apprentice: You're Fired!, a sister show that would air on BBC Three and operate within a similar format to spin-off sister shows like Big Brother's Little Brother and Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two. The search for a host for this programme led to chief football presenter Adrian Chiles being offered the role, with his acceptance revealed prior to the second series' premiere episode.

As with the first series, production staff and researchers went through applications made by those who sought to participate in the programme, until around fourteen candidates, consisting of the same balanced mix of genders, were informed in Summer 2005 that they had landed a place in the final line-up for the second series. Filming began later that year in Autumn, with the first task seeing the men name their team Invicta, while the women named their team Velocity. Although candidates faced a similar setup of tasks with only subtle changes to what these involved, one notable difference was that the Interviews stage was overseen by Paul Kemsley, Claude Littner, and Bordan Tkachuk, who returned to assume their roles, as it was decided that Hewer and Mountford would mainly supply feedback on observations over past tasks during discussions between Sugar and the interviewers. As with the previous series, the candidates faced a charity-based task, which this time featured a reward as done on similar tasks in the American original, before the use of it was discontinued following the conclusion of the series' broadcast.

This series is the first in the show's history to feature the iconic sequence involving the winner departing in Sugar's personal Rolls-Royce, giving a brief interview on their success, a sequence that was created to purely emphasise their victory on the programme as the overall winner. Of those who took part, Michelle Dewberry would become the eventual winner of this series, and go on to briefly take up a post under Sugar following its conclusion, leaving in September 2006 following a series of personal problems. Throughout its filming, prior to it being edited and prepared for broadcast, Sugar voiced issues to the production staff with the programme's format at the time – due to the number of candidates taking part against the number of episodes for the series, he was not allowed to fire more than one candidate in any task prior to the Interviews stage, despite the fact that two of the tasks featured outcomes where he felt more than one candidate deserved to be fired by him. Staff eventually reviewed the format after the production and broadcast of the second series, which led to eventual changes when work began on the third series.

This is the only series of the programme in which every candidate had at least one opportunity to Project Manage a task. This occurred again on the first series of Junior Apprentice in 2010, but has never happened again on the main adult programme.

Candidates

Candidate	Background	Age	Result
Michelle Dewberry	Telecoms Consultant	26	Winner
Ruth Badger	Sales Manager	27	Runner-up
Ansell Henry	Sales Manager	34	Fired after Interviews stage
Paul Tulip	Headhunter	26
Syed Ahmed	Entrepreneur	31	Fired after tenth task
Tuan Le	Financial Adviser	27	Fired after ninth task
Sharon McAllister	Business Lecturer	30	Fired after eighth task
Samuel Judah	Product Developer	35	Fired after seventh task
Jo Cameron	Human Resources Manager	35	Fired after sixth task
Mani Sandher	Management Consultant	39	Fired after fifth task
Alexa Tilley	Management Consultant	28	Fired after fourth task
Karen Bremner	Lawyer	34	Fired after third task
Nargis Ara	PhD Student	38	Fired after second task
Ben Stanberry	IT Consultant	33	Fired after first task

Performance chart

Candidate	Task Number
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Michelle	IN	IN	IN	IN	IN	IN	LOSE	IN	WIN	IN	IN	HIRED
Ruth	IN	IN	IN	IN	LOSE	IN	BR	WIN	BR	BR	IN	RUNNER-UP
Ansell	IN	IN	IN	IN	IN	LOSE	IN	IN	IN	IN	FIRED
Paul	IN	IN	IN	IN	WIN	IN	IN	IN	IN	WIN	FIRED
Syed	BR	IN	WIN	BR	IN	IN	IN	LOSE	BR	FIRED
Tuan	IN	IN	IN	BR	IN	IN	WIN	BR	FIRED
Sharon	IN	IN	IN	IN	IN	WIN	IN	FIRED
Samuel	BR	WIN	IN	IN	IN	BR	FIRED
Jo	IN	BR	LOSE	IN	BR	FIRED
Mani	IN	IN	IN	WIN	FIRED
Alexa	IN	IN	BR	FIRED
Karen	WIN	BR	FIRED
Nargis	IN	FIRED
Ben	FIRED

Key:

  The candidate won this series of The Apprentice.

  The candidate was the runner-up.

  The candidate won as project manager on his/her team, for this task.

  The candidate lost as project manager on his/her team, for this task.

  The candidate was on the winning team for this task / they passed the Interviews stage.

  The candidate was on the losing team for this task.

  The candidate was brought to the final boardroom for this task.

  The candidate was fired in this task.

  The candidate lost as project manager for this task and was fired.

Criticism

Mani Sandher portrayal claim

In 2007, a year after the second series had been aired, Mani Sandher filed a complaint against the BBC, criticising them for his portrayal on The Apprentice, on grounds that he been unfairly treated by the broadcaster. The BBC Trust investigated the complaint and later rejected the accusations. Their findings pointed out that Sandher was aware that the programme was subject to editing after filming, and that this had been done to an acceptable standard that was not misleading per Ofcom's broadcasting codes. Although Sandher later attempted to appeal against the Trust's decision on his complaint, the Editorial Complaints Unit of the BBC dismissed this.

Ratings

Official episode viewing figures are from BARB.

Episode no.	Airdate	Viewers (millions)	BBC Two weekly ranking
1	22 February 2006	3.65	2
2	1 March 2006	3.51	2
3	8 March 2006	4.20	1
4	15 March 2006	4.11	1
5	22 March 2006	4.03	2
6	29 March 2006	4.45	1
7	5 April 2006	4.26	1
8	12 April 2006	4.58	1
9	19 April 2006	4.76	1
10	26 April 2006	4.68	1
11	3 May 2006	4.98	1
12	10 May 2006	5.95	1

Specials

Episode	Airdate	Viewers (millions)	BBC Two weekly ranking
Tim in the Firing Line	19 February 2006	2.26	25

External links

• Template:Bbc.co.uk
• Times Online interview with Alan Sugar
• Amstrad Site
• Blog of the 2nd series written by marketing expert Steve Gibson