Lord Sugar is yet to be offered a contract for a 20th series of 'The Apprentice' - but he is "damn sure" the BBC will make it happen.
Lord Sugar yet to be offered contract for Apprentice's 20th series
The 76-year-old entrepreneur is gearing up to front the 18th series of the BBC One business show, and he has already accepted the corporation's offer to do a 19th version, and while the BBC haven't given the green light to any more seasons after that for now, he plans to ask.
Quizzed on whether he has an idea of how long he wants to do the show given the 20th anniversary is around the corner, Lord Sugar said: "Well, obviously we're going to do that. No question.
"But bear in mind, it's not my call, it's the BBC's call.
"They're the ones that will decide whether the programme has got longevity beyond 20 series.
"I have a contract to do series 19, I don't have a contract to do series 20 yet, but I'm pretty damn sure that I'll ask them to do it and we'll do it.
"But it's really up to them. It's up to their scheduling and all that type of thing."
Lord Sugar "loves" fronting the programme, and he finds it fascinating that some of the recent candidates were barely even born when the programme first started in 2005.
He added: "Me personally, I love it. I love doing it.
"I know Karren loves doing it. Tim loves doing it. And bear in mind that we've got people coming along now who 20 years ago weren't even born.
"Or we've got people coming along now who were five years or six years old when they first started watching 'The Apprentice' through their mums and dads.
"And now they're coming on the show. So, it's great. It's fantastic. And it's a great BBC programme."
What's more, Lord Sugar admitted the quality of this year's candidates is "superb".
He said: "I'm very pleased with this series because the quality of the candidates that we have attracted this year is superb, I have to say.
"This year, we've got a lot to work with."
'The Apprentice' returns on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from Thursday 1 February at 9pm.
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