Just half the candidates now remain in this year’s ‘The Apprentice’ with private tutor Sam Curry being the latest ‘casualty of the boardroom’. Now in its eleventh series, the demanding tasks, pushy candidates, and boardroom dramas have become synonymous with the show, which continues to draw average audiences of 6.4 million.
As ever, viewers are taking to Twitter to broadcast their opinions about the show in real-time. Here is a detailed look at the Twitter reaction so far.
Volume
The series began on Wednesday 14 October, taking 29% share of all TV viewers between 9pm and 10pm on Wednesday night. Blurrt have collected a total of 575,275 posts since the series began, which includes 321,052 tweets and 254,223 retweets.
Tweet volume consistently peaks during the first broadcast of each episode, with a much smaller peak the following day. This pattern of reaction is typical for TV shows, which receive a significant amount of Twitter engagement during the broadcast window.
Sentiment
The show has evoked a mixed reaction on Twitter with viewers enjoying the show itself but voicing pantomime-esque reactions to the individual candidates.
Positive comments have focused around:
Anticipation and excitement about the show before it airs
Positive reaction to the humorous moments in the show
Support for candidates
Whereas negative comments have focused around:
Frustration at the choices the candidates make during the tasks
Frustration when the ‘wrong’ candidate gets fired
Frustration when the ‘wrong’ team win the task
Emotion
The emotional reaction has also been mixed with 27% of tweets expressing love and 24% of tweets expressing anger. The angry tweets have mainly been directed at the ‘annoying’ and ‘clueless’ candidates for making bad decisions and not working as a team throughout the tasks.
Twitter provides an excellent water cooler environment for viewers to gather and discuss TV shows in real-time. Viewers can engage with the show and its contributors directly and voice their options in a public domain which encourages engagement.
Follow us on Twitter for more blogs and real-time analysis around social TV.