Once upon a time, Donald Trump ’s talents as a TV personality and pitchman were obvious to everyone—most of all himself.

When he launched his 2016 presidential run , millions of Americans knew him best not from his bankrupt casinos or the gossip pages of the New York Post but as the swaggering host of NBC’s The Apprentice , in which aspiring entrepreneurs competed for a full-time job in his real estate empire.

Trump routinely overstated the primetime dominance of The Apprentice , which was a breakout hit in its debut 2003–2004 season but saw its ratings steadily decline over subsequent years. Nonetheless, his rise as a candidate, propelled by his willingness to say anything to stay in the news cycle, seemed to affirm his on-camera star quality (even if it was actually people behind the scenes of The Apprentice who had edited his unscripted and less-than-coherent bluster to make him sound like a straight-talking businessman).

But where is Trump’s TV firepower today?…