The Apprentice featured the Isle of Wight in an episode aired on 19 March on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. The programme included a task filmed on the island in which candidates sourced items as part of a business challenge, providing national television exposure for the destination.
The Apprentice saw Lord Sugar, alongside his advisors Baroness Karren Brady and Tim Campbell MBE, set tasks for candidates to compete in a series of business-related jobs, with the aim of becoming the last person standing at the end of the series.
Television producers Fremantle first contacted Visit Isle of Wight in 2024, looking for a destination for one of the most popular regular series features – ‘discount buying’ – where the candidates must source nine items and make the best profit.
Visit Isle of Wight made suggestions of local items and offered film location settings, facing competition from two other locations under consideration by the producers of The Apprentice. Previous series locations include Jersey, Brighton and Stratford-upon-Avon, where the two teams of candidates are each handed a list of items to source and purchase within a set period.
Amy Summers, Head of Marketing and Sustainability at Visit Isle of Wight said, “From the initial call, we realised that this was an incredible opportunity to showcase the Isle of Wight in front of millions of people. It isn’t just the chance to show off how wonderful the Isle of Wight looks, but it also highlights local businesses and their products. The hardest part of the whole project was maintaining the secrecy – we’d like to thank the Isle of Wight businesses who worked with us and the production team from Fremantle to make this happen.”
