Drama

The Benefactor

The Benefactor is an American reality television show broadcast on ABC starting on September 13, 2004. The premise involved 16 contestants vying to win US$1 million from billionaire entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

In late March and early April 2004, ABC held open auditions for the show in Atlanta, Boise, Boston, Dallas and Las Vegas and also accepted auditions by mail.

The show and its format were kept tightly under wraps during its filming, which began on April 30, 2004 in Dallas, Texas. Mark Cuban purposefully kept details about the show to a minimum, eliciting only a small bit of information about the show on his personal blog during filming. Dallas journalists, eager to learn what was going on, routinely compiled sightings of Benefactor film crews around town.

However, the show proved to be extremely unpopular and suffered from very low ratings, despite leading in to the popular Monday Night Football. The show also suffered from ABC stations in NFL markets moving the show to a timeslot after Jimmy Kimmel Live! or another night entirely due to local sports shows devoted to NFL coverage or local pre-game shows in the pre-MNF slot. Episode three had only 4.9 million viewers, the network's least-watched show of that week. Episode four did even worse, with only 4.05 million viewers and finished sixth in its time slot among 18- to 49-year-olds.

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Created By

Status

Ended

Original Name

The Benefactor

First Air Date

September 13, 2004

Last Air Date

October 25, 2004

Seasons

1

Episodes

6

Language

English

Production Companies

Networks

ABC

S01E06

Episode 6

Mark goes to each of the three remaining contestants home towns. He visits Linda and her boyfriend, Dan, in Boston. When Cuban discovers that Linda's poverty story is a lie he is very mad. He later discovers that her claim to not know anything about computers is also a lie. Mark then makes the obvious choice and eliminates Linda. Mark gives Dominic and Femia one minute to tell him why they deserve the money. The interview takes place at American Airlines Center and Mark tells both hopefuls that they have lost. He wants to see how they handle losing. Later it is revealed that Cuban was very impressed with Femia's one minute arguement and that it was her competition to lose. Mark sets up a huge photo shoot and interviews with the media. He wants to see what each person says since they both believe they have lost. In the end, Femia and Dominic figure that something is up after they meet each other at the house. Mark comes out and reveals the winner. Femia pulls her name out o

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