Congratulations Julia Morris, the winner of the first Celebrity Apprentice Australia. Morris defeated her finalist partner Jason Coleman (Team Ignite) after seeing off opposing team Shane Crawford & Jesinta Campbell (Team Unity). What a thoroughly underwhelming round of applause she received on screen, too.
The final challenge was to prepare a new marketing campaign (including TV commercial and campaign launch) for Bouris’s company Yellow Brick Road financial management. Morris & Coleman won, with Bouris declaring Morris the ultimate winner of the $100,000 prize for her charity National Breast Cancer Foundation. In an act reflecting the class of the winner, Julia opted to split the prize money with Jason Coleman’s charity The Song Room.
Jesinta Campbell’s televised smackdown of Deni Hines’s childish attention-grabbing antics was the icing on the cake of what has been an example of the reality television genre at its finest. Though many questioned the celebrity status of many of the contestants, they were all a revelation in their involvement and willingness to say what they think on camera – critical to the success of any reality TV program. Warwick Capper with his self-delusion; Max Markson with his annoying distractions; Jason Coleman and his “464 shows he’s produced this year” (and his performance as the class suck up); Deni Hines being Deni Hines. Delicious.
The series has been a success for Channel 9, rushed into the 2011 schedule due to the excitement surrounding the contestants signed up for the show. Running the series stripped at 7pm weekenights has sured up the strategy for the network in 2012. The involvement of FreemantleMedia Australia must be noted as the production team worked their backsides off to bring this series in so promptly to meet demand and maintain the high production values of the series in such a short space of time.
Channel 9 are expected to announce a new series of Celebrity Apprentice Australia at their launch later this week, to match a new series of The Block and the launch of a new celebrity reality program Excess Baggage – all to run stripped 5 nights a week at 7pm.