The Apprentice, billed as a "job interview from hell", is a British reality television series in which a group of aspiring businessmen and women compete for the chance to work with the British business magnate Lord Sugar (previously known as "Sir Alan Sugar"). In series one to six, the prize was a £100,000-a-year job as an "apprentice" to Sugar, and winners went on to work at Amstrad, an electronics manufacturing company founded by Sugar or one of Sugar's other companies. In series seven, the prize changed to a £250,000 investment in a business of the candidate's creation, with Lord Sugar as a 50% owner. The first series began on February 2005 and lasted for twelve episodes. The viewer ratings climbed to almost 4 million viewers for the final episode on 4 May 2005.