Lord Alan Sugar has hinted he could quit The Apprentice in 2024 after completing 20 series of the BBC programme because it “sounds a round figure” to bow out on.
Image Source/ Business Leader
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The 72-year-old British businessman has been firing and hiring on the business challenge show since 2005 and although he is still enjoying it he thinks it could be a good time to leave the boardroom when he hits season 20.
Speaking at the launch of the upcoming 15th series, he said:
‘I have got one more series at the moment that I’m contracted to, it’ll be the sixteenth series. I might do it to 20 – 20 sounds a round figure’.
Alan also went on to state that he thinks The Apprentice is underappreciated by the BBC, claiming that “they don’t know what they’ve got” with the show.
He said:
‘One of the reasons I do this programme is to encourage young people. The amount of youngsters that I speak to every day of the week, stopping me in the street, love the programme, are inspired by it, it’s quite amazing. Oxford Union, Cambridge Union – those people are inspired by it.
The BBC do not understand, they do not understand, what they have there. They really don’t’.
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And the former Tottenham Hotspur chairman also thinks BBC bosses are making a mistake by not airing programmes which focus on the exploits of The Apprentice winners and their successes.
He said:
‘Also in the sense of the winners, in the sense of the success story of the winners, they do not understand what they have.
‘I have asked them time and time again to do a programme about those people that have won. Those people who have gone on, those people who are now employing 40 or 50 people, those people who have bought themselves a house, who have had children, and got a family and supported themselves and all that.
‘They don’t do it, they won’t do it. I suppose there’s some other policy there they’ve got that would be deemed to be promoting one of Lord Sugar’s businesses, which of course you can’t do on the BBC’.
Series 15 of The Apprentice will air on BBC One from October 2.
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