Mark Burnett

James Mark Burnett (born 17 July 1960) is a British television producer and author who is the former Chairman of MGM Worldwide Television Group.

He created The Apprentice, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? and Shark Tank, and produced the reality shows Survivor, The Voice, Beat Shazam, and Generation Gap.

Television series produced by Burnett have been nominated for a total of 151 Emmys.

He has personally won twelve Emmy Awards, five Producers Guild of America Awards, ten Critics' Choice Television Awards, and ten People's Choice Awards.

As of 2024, Burnett is the executive producer of five current network television shows, as well as several cable series.

For five consecutive years, Burnett has been included in the Variety500, an index of the 500 most influential business leaders shaping the global media industry.

Under Burnett's leadership, MGM has expanded its cable TV business through the acquisitions of Evolution Media (Botched, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, The Real Housewives of Orange County) and of Big Fish Entertainment (Live PD and Black Ink Crew).

Burnett co-created and produced the Christian media series The Bible and A.D. The Bible Continues, and produced the feature films Son of God, Little Boy, Woodlawn, and Ben-Hur.

He has authored ten books.

Burnett was born on 17 July 1960 in London, the only child of Archie and Jean Burnett, both Ford Motors factory workers, and was raised in Dagenham, Essex.

His father was a Roman Catholic and his mother was a Presbyterian; it is not known in which denomination he was raised.

At the age of 17, he enlisted in the British Army, and became a Section Commander in the Parachute Regiment.

From 1978 to 1982 he served with the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment in C Company and saw action during the Falklands War and Northern Ireland.

After his service, he initially planned to go to Central America and work as a "weapons and tactics adviser".

In October 1982, Burnett immigrated to the United States, where his friend Nick Hill, who had emigrated from the UK earlier, was working as a nanny and chauffeur.

Hill knew of an open position for a live-in nanny with the Jaeger family in affluent Beverly Hills.

Despite having no experience as a nanny, Burnett went on the interview.

The Jaegers, realizing the advantage of having a nanny and security at the same time, hired him.

After a year of working for the Jaegers, he moved on to another family in Malibu, California, taking care of two boys for $250 a week.

He was eventually given a position in the insurance office owned by the boys' father.

Two years later, Burnett rented a portion of a fence at Venice Beach in Los Angeles, and sold T-shirts for $18 each during weekends.

Realizing he made more money selling T-shirts, he left his insurance job.

In 1991, Burnett and four others joined a French adventure competition, the Raid Gauloises.

Afterward, Burnett saw a business opportunity in holding similar competitions.

He purchased the format rights and brought a similar competition, Eco-Challenge, to America.

Eco-Challenge launched Burnett's career as a television producer.

Burnett first produced the expedition race show Eco-Challenge in 1995.

This led to the hit reality show Survivor which premiered in the summer of 2000, and was the most watched summer series since Sonny & Cher.

In 2004, NBC premiered The Apprentice, a reality television series in which contestants competed for a job under real estate magnate and later US President Donald Trump.

Burnett has produced several other television franchises including Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, Shark Tank, The Voice, Beat Shazam, Coupled, and TKO: Total Knock Out.

He has maintained a strong presence in award show franchises, having produced the MTV Movie Awards (2007–2011), the annual People's Choice Awards (2010–2017), the Spike Video Game Awards (2011 & 2012) and the 2011 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards.

Burnett has produced more than 3,200 hours of television programming which regularly airs in more than 70 countries.

Past shows include Celebrity Apprentice (NBC), Bully Beatdown, Combat Missions, The Contender, The Contender Asia, Expedition Africa, Expedition Impossible, How'd You Get So Rich?, Martha Stewart, My Dad Is Better than Your Dad, On the Lot (a collaboration with Steven Spielberg), Pirate Master, The Restaurant, Rock Star, Sarah Palin's Alaska, Stars Earn Stripes, Starmaker, Toughest Cowboy and Wedding Day.

Burnett and his wife, actress Roma Downey, produced The Bible, a ten-hour History Channel drama based upon stories of the Bible.

Survivor was named the Number 1 reality series of all time by Entertainment Weekly in 2009.

The Bible became the No. 1 new series on cable TV in 2013 and was the No. 1 series in Canada, Spain and Portugal.

In total, with subsequent airings, The Bible was seen by more than 100 million viewers.

After the success of The Bible, Burnett and Downey started developing more faith-based scripted series.

In September 2014, MGM acquired a 55 percent interest in One Three Media and LightWorkers Media.

A.D. The Bible Continues premiered on NBC on Easter Sunday 2015, and The Dovekeepers miniseries aired on CBS in 2015.