ITS catchphrase “You’re fired” is echoing through the world’s boardrooms. The Apprentice, the “business idol” show devised by a Falklands veteran, is the latest global reality television hit.

First it was the billionaire Donald Trump putting wannabe entrepreneurs through a series of challenges to claim a top job with his property corporation. Last week, Sir Alan Sugar became Britain’s most feared boss when the BBC Two version was launched.

Business has become a “sexy” proposition for television commissioners. The UK Apprentice comes after BBC Two’s peak-time Dragons’ Den, in which inventors pitched their ideas, Pop Idol-style, to a panel of tough entrepreneurs.

The original US Apprentice was a surprise smash for the NBC network, attracting 30 million viewers and inspiring a rival Fox version starring Sir Richard Branson.

The Apprentice format has been sold to 18 countries. A pan-Arab version promises to shake up traditional trading practices in the Middle East.

Mohamed Ali Alabbar, a Dubai property and financial services magnate, will award a $300,000 (£158,000) “dream job” to the finest young business brain in the Arab world.

However, The Apprentice’s real winner is Mark Burnett, a former paratrooper from Dagenham, who persuaded Trump to star in the US show.

After serving in the Falklands and Northern Ireland, Burnett, 44, emigrated to the US where he sold T-shirts on Venice Beach and landed a job as a Beverly Hills nanny. Now, Time magazine has named the producer as one of the “100 most influential people on the planet” after he became the driving force behind reality TV, with hits including the US Survivor series.

Burnett joined forces with FremantleMedia, the format distribution company that sold Pop Idol to 30 countries. The company produces bespoke versions of its formats to meet cultural sensitivities.

The brutal weekly dispatch of failed candidates by Trump and Sugar with the words “You’re fired” may not survive the show’s transition to the Arab world. Isabelle Garcia, Fremantle’s Middle East manager, said: “We may require something less coarse because that is not the language used in Arab businesses.

“We will also create tasks that suit the environment and the society, but it is very important for the programme that female contestants will be treated equally.”

The first challenge was to find the Arab world’s equivalent of Trump. Ali Alabbar was chosen because he mixed Western “go-getting” management techniques, absorbed as a business student at Seattle University, with traditional Arab values.

He is offering an executive position in the $7.7 billion Emaar corporation, which is backed by the Dubai Government and includes a chain of Armani-branded boutique hotels. The Arab series will be screened by LBCSat, a Lebanese-based broadcaster that covers the region.

Alabbar is hoping that the series will uncover entrepreneurs who can challenge a perception that Arab wealth is dependent on a few oil-rich dynasties.

“I want apprentices to be everywhere in the Arab world, learning and planning and building businesses,” he said. “We also have to learn and acquire the winning habit and this programme will help towards that.”

Series of The Apprentice are under way in Greece, Germany, Brazil, Norway and Denmark. There may be a global challenge between the winners.

Western “reality” shows are sweeping the Middle East. The pan-Arab Pop Idol final became a battle for national pride when Libyan and Palestinian singers competed for the prize.

However, Big Brother failed to cross the cultural divide when the Arab version was launched in Bahrain. The series collapsed after protests over men and women appearing together.

Burnett is facing questions over the ethics of reality TV after a contestant in his new boxing series committed suicide last week. Najai Turpin, a boxer from Philadelphia, shot himself in front of his girlfriend three weeks before The Contender, a £13 million US reality series in which he featured, is due to start. Burnett said that the show would continue.

He is also going ahead with an Apprentice spin-off starring Martha Stewart, the lifestyle guru jailed for misleading the US authorities over a stock market deal.

BBC woos young with wheelers and dealers

The BBC is on a mission to attract younger viewers to programmes that turn business into entertainment. Dragons’ Den will return after attracting a regular audience of two million, with a significant number of under-35s. The Apprentice opened in the UK with more than two million viewers and the audience is expected to grow. Business was given a glossy “docu-drama” treatment in The Man who Broke Britain, the story of a rogue trader who brings down his bank. A film about Saatchi & Saatchi’s attempt to transform the fortunes of a Brazilian alcoholic drink had a prime-time BBC Two slot last week.

TRUMPED UP

FHM, the men’s magazine, ran a lingerie photo of four of the female contestants — Kristi Frank, Ereka Vetrini, Katrina Campin and Henry. They posed for no fee.

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