The first show in the season pulled in 237,000 for TV3. The Herald said on Thursday that:

“New figures show that the Bill Cullen-fronted show, which is expected to be the station’s greatest success story, only scored half as many viewers as Who Do You Think You Are? on RTE.”

The RTE1 programme took 471,000 viewers. A comment during the live blog last week pointed out that RTE shifted the start of Raw from 9.00 to 9.55 and showed an old CSI instead. They are repeating that this week, which is perhaps a sign that RTE know they won’t win on ratings in a head to head with The Apprentice. No doubt the viewing figure will be watched closely to see if the interest is sustained over the remaing 11 weeks.

Live Blog of this weeks episode is happenig over at Deborah’s place, so keep an eye out there and join in the discussion.

The house where the Apprentice Candidates were holed up for the duration of the filming is a closely guarded secret. The Herald (again). got a good look at the plush surrounding.

Local newspapers report on their Apprentice hopefuls. Orla McAdam, Ronan Whitty.

Andrea Roche will make a guest appearance and the show bosses hope she will add “some glamour” to the mix.

Bill’s lookee-likee, Mark O’Rourke is getting great encouragement from his mates on his Bebo page. Latest comment is classic – reproduced verbatim below.

“alright mark seen that you where on the apprentice thingy you’ve come a long way from selling crack to kids to selling 5 banana’s for 50 on moore street you should of fit right in with the big gay head on ya lol.(maybe not since the place is flooded with them imports and tiddley winks)
Sure I’m only jokin about the big gay head thing but them kids will never be right after that dodgy batch.
Anywho a big congrats from the Kelly’s in Oz and we hope ya do well”

There’s no mistaking, this version of the Apprentice is uniquely Irish

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I will be live blogging the Apprentice Ireland this evening and it will appear right here!