On Media Blog Archives Select Date… December, 2015 November, 2015 October, 2015 September, 2015 August, 2015 July, 2015 June, 2015 May, 2015 April, 2015 March, 2015 February, 2015 January, 2015

"We don't own the footage. We're pursuing it along with every other news organization reporting on this story," an NBC spokeswoman said. | AP Photo Digging for Trump 'Apprentice' tapes? They're not at NBC

When The Washington Post and NBC News unveiled behind-the-scenes footage of Donald Trump making lewd comments about women when taping "Access Hollywood" in 2005, speculation quickly turned to the question of how much more hot-mic tape might be out there — say, from his years helming "The Apprentice."

The show, which relaunched Trump's fame and has been described as the training ground for his presidential run, likely has hundreds of hours of potentially compromising tape, the thinking goes.

Perhaps, but none of it will come to light in quite the same way as Friday's bombshell. Though "The Apprentice" aired on NBC, the tapes don't belong to the network that followed quickly on the footsteps of The Washington Post reporting about Trump's comments in 2005.

"We don't own the footage. We're pursuing it along with every other news organization reporting on this story," an NBC spokeswoman said on Saturday.

"The Apprentice" producer Mark Burnett--still thought to be close with Trump--is the one who owns the footage. Requests for comment from his spokespeople were not returned on Saturday.

The Associated Press, which first reported that the cast and crew of the show said Trump would make inappropriate comments during filming, said on Saturday that they have made repeated requests to Burnett to provide the original "The Apprentice" footage for review earlier this year, but that those calls were not returned and neither were follow-up calls this week.

Bill Pruitt, a veteran reality television producer who worked on The Apprentice, wrote on Twitter that there is a wealth of information in those Apprentice tapes.

"As a producer on seasons 1 & 2 of #theapprentice I assure you: when it comes to the #trumptapes there are far worse. #justthebegininng," Pruitt wrote.

The AP's report proves that at least some news organizations have been seeking out this footage for months.

Another question on many people's minds was how and why "Access Hollywood" or parent company NBC did not look through the footage or report on it over the past year and a half.

Some have theorized it was purposely planned this way. But "Access Hollywood" said on Friday they only began looking through their tapes for this incident this week after the AP report about Trump's comments to the cast and crew of "The Apprentice."