NBC Orders More Trump And His Celebrity Apprentice

NBC has picked up The Celebrity Apprentice for a second season. The order completes a strong comeback for the Apprentice franchise, which had been canceled in May before new NBC programming chief Ben Silverman brought it back with a celebrity version. In what will be Apprentice’s eighth installment overall, the reality competition hosted by Donald Trump will stick to the celebrity format, featuring entertainment figures competing in business tasks for charitable causes. The second season of Celebrity Apprentice will premiere in January.

The first season of “Celebrity Apprentice” will wrap with a live two-hour finale March 27. So far, the contestants have raised more than $1 million for various charities, including the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund of CNY, the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Despite some declines since its premiere, Celebrity Apprentice is the top Thursday series among adults 18-49, averaging a 3.9 rating/10 share in the demographic and 9.3 million viewers overall.