When It Comes To Hype, Trump’s Not An Apprentice

(New York) You know you’ve arrived when Donald Trump is invited to a party you throw and he shows up… more or less on time.

You’ve also arrived when The Donald refers to you as “a friend.”

By these standards 6-year-old TV One and Comcast chief Brian Roberts clearly have arrived.

TV One endangered the lives of about 200 young, hip and largely well-dressed people early Monday evening at Trump Tower in NY City—it allowed Mr Trump to get close to a microphone.

The occasion was a kick-off for TV One’s newest reality series, Donald J. Trump Presents The Ultimate Merger (premieres June 17, 9p). Fortunately, no lives were lost.

TV One either thinks master-dealer Trump really is the only person who can arrange a marital union for The Apprentice’s queen of nasty Omarosa (that’s the series’ premise—12 mostly hot, successful bachelors vie for Lady O’s hand in marriage) or it thinks Mr Trump’s name at the beginning of a series title will bring buzz, ratings and ad dollars. In this sense the word Trump can be used interchangeably with the word Oprah.

You can’t blame TV One if it catches Oprah fever. TV One chief Johnathan Rodgers used to run Discovery Channel. His current office in Silver Spring, Md, is across the street from Discovery, Oprah’s future employer. From his window Mr Rodgers has a bird’s eye view of the palatial headquarters of his former employer. This is Mr Rodgers’ neighborhood.

Of course you can and should blame the irresponsible barber who’s tending to the faded orange helmet atop Mr Trump’s head.

Will Trump and Omarosa mean gold for TV One? Time will tell. Clips of the series shown during the event had Omarosa putting the bachelors through their paces in various tests. There also was plenty of lip locking going on between Omarosa and the competing lads. Omarosa, who looked great in person, was also shown being massaged by the guys, wearing a bikini and, as is her rep, scolding the men. She’s also shown crying. Would it be a reality TV series if at least one person in the cast didn’t cry?

There were also glimpses of comedian George Wallace, TV One’s first homegrown talent, Chef G. Garvin, and a slew of what looked to be reality TV talent or wannabe’s.

Come to think of it, several people in the crowd at the event seemed to have come from the reality television genre.

That’s as far as we can go on a review of the series since the clips were barely audible over the din of guests drinking and networking in Mr Trump’s marble-laden tower. That was unfortunate. The noise also nearly drowned out Mr Trump’s remarks. For this we can be grateful.

Yet judging by the excitement Mr Trump generated when he arrived nearly 40 minutes late for his spiel on behalf of a series that credits him as executive producer, TV One managers, like original programming chief Toni Judkins and execs Jubba Seyyid and Craig Henry, made a decent bet. Mr Trump certainly has an aura. The crowd erupted.

And as if Brian Roberts and Comcast needed more accolades. Mr Trump praised “my friend Brian Roberts and all the wonderful people of Comcast…they do a great job.” Comcast owns TV One, Mr Trump told the crowd. (Well, Comcast is among the owners, along with Radio One, DirecTV and others).

Perhaps as important, Comcast also aims to own the network that carries The Apprentice, a series Mr Trump mentioned several times in his remarks. The Apprentice has helped push Mr Trump back into the ranks of pop culture superstardom. Talk about the ultimate merger.