The Apprentice 2020 series called off by BBC over coronavirus

Karren Brady, Lord Sugar and Claude Littner will not pick an apprentice this year

This year's series of The Apprentice has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic, the BBC has said.

The show, which sees Sir Alan Sugar pick a business partner, has been broadcast every year since 2005, and normally starts in October.

But series 16 has been put on hold in the interests of "production safety and the wellbeing of everyone involved".

Instead, highlights of previous boardroom highs and lows will be broadcast later this year.

Lord Sugar has previously said the series could be pushed back to next spring or by a whole year.

Last week, the businessman was criticised for appearing to downplay the impact of the virus, saying lockdown restrictions should be lifted faster, as he had seen happen in the US.

Speaking on Jeremy Vine's Channel 5 show from his home in Florida, the 73-year-old said: "I just, logically, say, 'Well hold on, six weeks when we've come out of this so-called lockdown, who's dead?'

"I'm not. I'm still alive. My wife, thank God, is still alive. So's everybody else I know. No-one else has caught anything."

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Some TV shows, like EastEnders and Coronation Street, have recently resumed filming under new Covid-19 guidelines.

But others, like Love Island, have been cancelled, while there are question marks over how other autumn and winter ratings winners like The Great British Bake Off, Strictly Come Dancing and I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here will go ahead.

Last year's series of The Apprentice ended in December, when it was won by Carina Lepore.