Report: NBC tells 'Apprentice' star Martha Stewart: 'You're fired'
UPI News Service, 11/14/2005
NBC has canceled "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart," it was announced Monday.
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Sources told the Hollywood Reporter next month's finale would be the final episode of the struggling spinoff of Donald Trump's original, "The Apprentice."
An NBC spokesman downplayed the axing, telling The Reporter "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" was only meant to last a single season.
Plans for the spinoff were announced in February while Stewart was in federal prison for lying about a stock sale. The spokesman said the network and Mark Burnett Productions had hoped to capitalize on public curiosity about Stewart in the wake of her legal problems.
Stewart's "Apprentice" has drawn an average 6.8 million viewers.
Her syndicated talk show, "Martha," also a Burnett and NBC Universal production, has delivered "fair-to-middling ratings," The Reporter said.
