Are TV billionaires a bust?
In the wake of NBC's success with billionaire Donald Trump and "The Apprentice" this season, ABC went ahead with "The Benefactor," featuring billionaire Mark Cuban. But the owner of the Dallas Mavericks has bombed on TV, drawing just over 4 million viewers a week — a tremendously terrible number for a major broadcast network. (If, as Forbes magazine reported, Cuban is worth $1.3 billion, maybe he could pay 4 million people $325 each to watch his show.)
To be fair, "The Benefactor" hasn't been helped by ABC's scheduling. By airing it on Monday nights, it's seen before "Monday Night Football" in the Eastern and Central time zones, after the game on the West Coast and whenever ABC stations in the Mountain Time Zone can find a place to plug it in. Locally, that's been Tuesdays at 2 a.m. on Ch. 4.
But, also to be fair, "The Benefactor" isn't much of a show to begin with. It's unfocused and derivative, with Cuban and the producers apparently making up the rules as they go along, trying to determine who's the most deserving of the $1 million prize the billionaire will be giving out in the final episode.
In retrospect, Cuban's boasting about how he'd beat up on Trump in the ratings (although the two shows don't air at the same time) seems even sillier than it did when he did the boasting.
Not that he's alone in that. Appearing before TV critics over the summer, Trump insisted "The Apprentice" was No. 1 in the ratings last season, which it wasn't. (That honor went to "American Idol," although trying to tell Trump that was like talking to a wall.)
And "The Apprentice 2" hasn't met with the same success as its predecessor. Oh, it's still doing very well — it's No. 12 overall for the season to date. But it's getting trounced on Thursday nights by "CSI," which has averaged a rating more than 40 percent higher than what Trump and his minions are getting.
Last week, for example, "CSI" attracted 28.23 million viewers to 15.64 million for "The Apprentice," an advantage of nearly 45 percent. And "CSI" trumped Trump in every category that counts, with a 74 percent advantage in households, a 51 percent advantage in adults 25-54 and a 36 percent advantage in adults 18-49.
Even The Donald can't spin those numbers and make it look good.
Adding insult to injury, three weeks ago, when "The Apprentice 2" aired on a Wednesday (because of a presidential debate), Trump and Co. lost to a "CSI" rerun. Ouch.
And beginning Tuesday, Nov. 9, Fox will bring us "The Rebel Billionaire: Richard Branson's Quest for the Best." Branson will take "16 would-be billionaires on a whirlwind tour of the world to test their mettle by reliving some of his colorful adventures," eliminating one each week in a competition "to join Branson's empire in a truly remarkable way."
Which sounds like a ripoff of both "The Apprentice" and "The Amazing Race." But I digress.
You never know, but Fox's timing appears to be off. America's brief love affair with TV billionaires may be over.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com
You can be the first to comment on this story.