Donald Trump's Continued War With Rosie O'Donnell Could Hurt APPRENTICE Ratings

Donald Trump has often proved himself to be the master of hype and publicity. But this time he may have overplayed his hand. The public is nearly evenly split according to some informal polls on whether they tend to side with Trump or O'Donnell in their continued feud. In fact, as O'Donnell cooled her side in this conflict, Trump's continued and very personal attacks have taken on the childish quality of a schoolyard bully. This sort of publicity cannot possiby help Trump's season premiere set for tonight on NBC of THE APPRENTICE.

Even the thin reasons used to fire his usual female assistant on THE APPRENTICE, replacing her with his daughter, Ivanka, may only serve as a reminder of the growing public perception of Trump being a mean and petty man. Even the gererous and kind reward that Trump paid to the "Subway Hero" of $10,000 seems to have been drowned out in his loud and nasty attacks on O'Donnell. THE APPRENTICE has already proven some signs of ratings fatigue with viewers last season, when the Martha Stewart version became a quick ratings failure and was cancelled.

It will be an important test whether the public wants to see more of Donald Trump by watching his APPRENTICE show, or whether they think that they've more than enough from Trump recently and will stick with the very popular programs on CBS or ABC instead.