What a year Mark Burnett has had! 2004 has marked a milestone in his outstanding career as a television producer. His highly rated series Survivor, on CBS, has culminated 7 seasons with its eighth, revisiting audience favorites with the All Stars. At the same time he launched the highly anticipated 'The Apprentice' series which starred Donald Trump, a major coup for any reality show production. In May, he was presented with a special tribute as “2004 Philanthropist of the Year” by the Reality Cares Foundation. Then in the fall, his streak of good fortune continued with The Apprentice 2 and Survivor: Vanuatu, season 9. While his other series, The Restaurant on NBC and The Casino on FOX were panned by critics and audiences alike, and his sitcom Commander Nanny seems dead on arrival, he has big plans to strengthen his leadership in network and cable productions with upcoming The Contender for NBC and Recovery, for CBS.
Ethan Zohn, Mark Burnett and Todd Krim (founder of Reality Cares Foundation)
Mark Burnett commenced 2004 with two huge productions slated for January to compete against the mega-hit, American Idol. Introducing The Apprentice and promoting the All Star version of the veteran Survivor show simultaneously proved a very courageous challenge against the American cultural phenomenon American Idol (AI). AI was then in it’s third season and was expected to be larger than life, capturing the nation’s interest greater than the Superbowl, thanks to the popularity and close race between season 2 contestants Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard. Mark Burnett heavily promoted both series and it paid off. Survivor brought back fan favorites such as Richard Hatch, Rudy Beosch, Colby Donaldson, Ethan Zohn, Kathy Vavrick-O’brien, Tina Wesson, Big Tom Buchanan, Amber Brkich, Baston Raub Mariano, Rob Cesternino, and Rupert Boneham to name a few. The dramatic tension between Richard Hatch and Susan Hawk fueled the audiences’ desire for conflict but it was the captivating love story behind winner Amber Brkich and Rob Mariano that garnered the high ratings. Mark Burnett capitalized on the season’s popularity while experimenting with the commercial sensation of text messaging and Internet input, a la American Idol, by offering a viewer’s choice award for a secondary millionaire recipient. The prize went to venerable crowd favorite, Rupert Boneham.
The Apprentice was Mark Burnett’s other high end creation for the winter/spring of 2004. American audiences were instantly captivated by the theme of 16 highly educated and entrepreneurial type-A personalities vying for the title of apprentice in one of Donald Trump’s multi-million dollar corporations and a year’s salary of $250,000. In the process, Burnett and Trump introduced Americans to some of the most endearing and memorable reality stars in the history of the genre. Who can forget narcissistic Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, tough talking Heidi Bressler, charismatic Troy McClain, or oddball Sam Solovey? America was impressed with final four candidates Kwame Jackson, Ami Henry, Katrina Campins and winner Bill Rancic. Audiences was drawn to the unique programming that offered daunting entrepreneurial challenges in scenic New York while the contestants work as teams yet with the agenda of also competing against their colleagues as individuals whom they must work and live with. Nothing created more natural tension for working Americans than the board room where each week one individual heard the phrase, “You’re Fired!” The program proved a commercial success for everyone involved, including the cast, the producer Mark Burnett, the host, Donald Trump as well as all of Burnett and Trump’s corporate sponsors and philanthropic charitable interests.
In fact it was Mark Burnett’s charitable fundraising for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, raising more than $1 million, that garnered him the first ever Reality Cares Foundation honor as recipient of the “Philanthropist of the Year” award. On May 20, 2004, the Reality Cares Foundation at the Giving Back Fund (www.realitycares.org) honored Mark Burnett with the “Philanthropist of the Year” award at the Kenneth Cole Flagship store in Rockefeller Center, co-sponsored by In Touch Weekly. The event was hosted by Joanne Newborn of Who Wants to Marry My Dad? and Dr. Will Kirby of Big Brother. The tribute was heavily attended by other reality show personalities from other hits such as Big Brother, Average Joe, Paradise Hotel and Real World. But the real stand outs were the special guest stars from Burnett’s own series such as Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, Ereka Ventrini, Heidi Bressler, Katrina Campins and Sam Solovey of The Apprentice, Gideon Horowitz, Jeanine Kaspar and Carrie Keranen of The Restaurant, and Ethan Zohn (award presenter), Jenna Morasca, Rob Cesternino, Jon Dalton, Shii-Ann Huang, Rob Mariano and Amber Brkich of Survivor. Proceeds from the event went to support other Reality Cares Foudation causes and support Ethan Zohn’s Grassroot Soccer, an international AIDS awareness organization composed of former and current professional soccer players.
Unfortunately not every television venture proved to be a success for Mark Burnett in 2004. The second season of The Restaurant followed season one’s average rated series from the trials and tribulations of starting up a restaurant in its first year within the highly competitive New York City arena to the aftermath of a sensationalized lawsuit over the partnership disagreement between Chef Rocco DeSpirito and financier Jeffrey Chodorow. The ratings were dismal and the network yanked the series from the line-up mid-season. The effect on the program was devastating as the cast and their audiences were left without a satisfactory conclusion. The Casino did not do much better in the ratings. While the series was permitted to conclude with its final episode, there were no negotiations to proceed with a second season. I feel that the problem stemmed from production problems such as the reality format and workplace location. The atmosphere of an overcrowded restaurant or casino created a difficult task for the film crew and editors. It was difficult to hear the conversations over the loud background noise and camera work was choppy. The audiences just couldn’t grasp any interest in what was going on and the behind the scenes action of a glamorous restaurant or casino proved boring. No one wants to escape the drudgery of their own workplace by peering into the dull working lives of others. That’s just reality redundancy.
So for the fall Mark Burnett returned to want he does best, producing reality competitions. He introduced us to the familiar but with an “edge”. Survivor returned in the Vanuatu Islands, this time with 18 contestants. The Apprentice also returned with 18 contestants of its own. Mark Burnett utilized the same gender division in both programs, which we have seen before in Survivor: Amazon (season 6) and The Apprentice (season 1). Both series faced the same challenge, remaining fresh and vibrant for an American audience that suffers from collective ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Within Survivor, while Mark Burnett continued to tweak slight alterations in the game rules known as twists, the solution to avoid complacency was with the casting. Survivor: Vanuatu added special interest participants, Chad Crittenden who competed with a prosthetic leg and Scout Cloud Lee, an elderly woman with an artificial knee. The season was rather lackluster until the all female alliance, run with impressive efficiency by Ami Cusack, suddenly unraveled allowing the final male, Chris Daugherty to win over six females. To add to the legendary lore of this occurrence, the men were mystically favored to win by obtaining a Vanuatu ritualistic sacred stone while Chris was seen by many as the person who should have been the first eliminated. He overcame incredible odds to win.
In The Apprentice 2, Mark Burnett and Donald Trump followed the winning formula of season one, down to the final four candidates, Kelly Perdew, Jennifer Massey, Kevin Allen and Sandy Ferreira resembling the final four of season one: Bill Rancic, Ami Henry, Kwame Jackson and Katrina Campins in respective order. Within The Apprentice 2, complacency was averted by provoking sensational board room outcomes that one upped anything the public witnessed from the previous boardroom. It began by offering exemption status to the project manager of the winning team over the next boardroom as an incentive to assume the leadership role. It backfired on the very first recipient of the exemption status when Bradford Cohen unwittingly waived the status as the boss, Donald Trump, mistakenly viewed a boast as a nonchalant dismissal of the exemption benefit. He was subsequently fired. Radical terminations continued to sweep the unsuspecting candidates in outrageous fashion including the termination of Elizabeth Jarosz on the spot without the benefit of a boardroom hearing, the double termination of Maria Boren and Wes Moss in one flip of the wrist and the unnecessarily humiliating experience by finalist Jennifer Massey to audience jeers when Trump asked who he should spare Jennifer or Kelley. Well it is a reality show done for ratings first after all and Burnett and Trump deliver the goods.
Now that 2004 comes to a close, how does Mark Burnett bring the genre, and his successful reign, to the next level in 2005? The Apprentice 2 finale showcased a huge promotion for Burnett’s next reality revelation, The Contender, on NBC. Co-produced by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Sylvester Stallone, the competition will infuse the spirit of Rocky into the reality version of the pugilism world. 16 unknown contenders will aspire to be the last man standing and vie for the million dollar prize along with a contract into professional boxing. The competition will follow the rigorous training program and 3 round bouts weekly as opponents are either eliminated or progress forward. With a nod to American Idol, the producers hope to also foster the careers of many top hopefuls. In addition, revamp the celebrity careers of former champions like George Foreman and Sugar Ray Leonard who will serve as hosts.
Another program in negotiations is Recovery for CBS, which will follow the reality format of America’s Most Wanted where real life dramas are captured on the series. Only instead of focusing on bringing in wanted criminals the stories will focus on recovering kidnapped children, reuniting them with their families. Burnett has partnered with Bazzel Baz, a former U.S. Marine and CIA officer who is an experienced and vital personality in volunteer rescue operations. Baz will lead a group of specialists in law enforcement, military, and espionage missions to rescue abducted children. The pilot episode took a great deal of time and expense to be made and so CBS only opted for the one episode, originally scheduled for the Fall 2004 lineup. The theme is an important one not to be overlooked and so with any luck it will be picked up for spring 2005. Mark Burnett will not neglect his Twin Titans: Survivor and Apprentice already poised as heavy hitters against the next wave of American Idol mania. I for one cannot wait for 2005 to arrive.
John Henry Sotomayor
jsotomayor@elitestv.com
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