The Donald fired up by 'Trump' slump
May 26, 2005 (NY Daily News) Donald Trump's life on film wasn't much of a draw for ABC Tuesday night, and no one is happier than Trump himself. "They don't want to watch crap," Trump told the Daily News yesterday. "I'm so happy about it. It was just not done well"...
..."Trump Unauthorized," based on Gwenda Blair's book about the Trump family, was commissioned by ABC earlier this season. But while the book covered other aspects of the Donald's family life, the film focused on his public life and marriages, ending with a fictional producer coming to talk about a new show.
Ironically, the film aired less than a week after the third season of "The Apprentice" aired its finale on NBC.
ABC scheduled it on what might well have been one of the toughest nights this month.
NBC had the finale of "The Contender," ABC aired "Trump," CBS had the wedding of "Survivor" stars Rob Mariano and Amber Brkich, and Fox aired its monster hit "American Idol."
All beat "Trump Unauthorized."
The ABC film averaged 5.5 million viewers, to finish fourth in the time period - and it was clobbered.
For example, the first hour of the movie faced Fox's medical drama "House," which averaged 19.6 million viewers. And in the final hour, "Law & Order" won with 15.8 million viewers.
"It was sort of entertaining, but not done well," Trump said of the film, which got weak reviews.
"This has nothing to do with me," he said. "I am a ratings machine."
As for the content, Trump said he didn't watch the whole thing, but what he did see wasn't bad enough to call for legal action - which he had threatened before the tele-movie aired.
"I think there were a lot of inaccuracies, but it's not worth suing over," Trump said. "It got terrible reviews. I am very happy they want to watch the real Donald Trump and not an imitation Donald Trump."
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