Talk:The Rebel Billionaire

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Here, in short, is why TRB failed where the apprentice succeeded:

Trump does one thing which most people understand and he does it well. Branson is into EVERYTHING and thinks so differently to other people they cannot relate to him or his show.

Trump has focus, Branson has an open mind. Trump went to Wharton, Branson struggled against dyslexia and did the opposite of academia to survive. The Apprentice is pure ambition, TRB is a series of ever wackier things which someone with an amazing but undisciplined imagination cobbled together so people would (hopefully) understand him.

Branson claims that he does not like speaking in public, but not uncommon with introverts, he is quite a showman. His charisma is unsuited to mass appeal. Trump's, and his signature "you're fired" line, is the guy we can all relate to.

Branson, who offeres Virgin airlines tickets in an envelope to two people, one of which may be a ticket home, comes across as a coward, who hates to fire nice people. Plus it suggests that Virgin airlines tickets bring uncertain stressful news. Who dreamt that little touch up?

Lots of other things wrong with the show, but the lack of a coherent plot is the main one of them.

I agree the incoherency of the plot was a possible major detractor from the show. Escpecially against The Apprentice, where you knew exacly what you were going to get every episode. I agree also that the "nice guy" attitude that Branson (and indeed the entire show) portrayed didn't nearly match up (in terms of what modern day TV viewers want) to Trump's extremely aggresive "YOUR FIRED" attitude and the bitchiness of the apprentice hopefuls.

I don't know that the Virgin tickets implying bad news therefor people wouldn't fly the airline argument quite stacks up, but the blatent commercialism of the series didn't help it's ratings I'm sure, there's only so much product placement that even US viewers will take. Finally, although I don't have figures to hand, I seem to remeber A LOT more marketing went into the Apprentice than Rebel Billionaire (The Apprentice bombarded the world with TV and poster ads). Combined with the fact that The Apprentice was first of the block is in my view the most probable reason for the gap in viewing figures between the shows. Having said all that, as far as I understand the Rebel Billionaire was far from a complete flop (something which the article maybe over-implies it was), does anyone have viewing figures / ratings for the show? Canderra 07:22, 9 December 2005 (UTC)