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The news means that the popular reality show will remain on air through its fifth season in 2006.
The current - third - season premiered on Thursday to an impressive 15.6 million viewers, 1.2 million up on the season two finale last month.
"There has been some criticism of `The Apprentice's' second cycle, that it wasn't as strong as the first cycle," said NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker. "Obviously that's true. But before the launch of `American Idol,' it was the third-ranked show in 18-to-49. [Thursday] we were thrilled with the premiere of the third cycle and in fact it did an incredibly high number."
