Mark Burnett

Reality television impresario Mark Burnett doesn't think his latest business will be half-baked. The man behind such hits as "Survivor" and "The Apprentice" announced Tuesday that he had invested in microwave oven technology that aims to fully cook food. Burnett, 47, said he had a 25% stake in the firm, Microwave Science, which owns the rights to a trademarked technology called TrueCookPlus.

For nearly a decade, reality-show impresario Mark Burnett's chief deal maker and go-to guy was Conrad Riggs. They met in the late 1990s, when ambitious British-born entrepreneur Burnett was eager to break into show business after hawking T-shirts on Venice Beach and Riggs was a onetime low-level business executive for Walt Disney Co.

"Survivor" producer Mark Burnett, voting his longtime business manager off the island, contended Wednesday in a lawsuit that even after Conrad Riggs received more than $25 million during their decade-long relationship, Riggs engaged in schemes to enrich himself further. Burnett's countersuit comes three weeks after Riggs originally sued Burnett, the producer of such reality TV shows as "The Apprentice" and "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?"

Seven years after shooting the first season of "Survivor" on Borneo island, Mark Burnett is returning to Asia to develop and distribute new reality TV series and game shows. Burnett's Los Angeles-based production firm and Asian leisure group Genting International plan to invest up to $20 million in a joint venture.

Further proof that the world of Internet entertainment is fast becoming as competitive as television came Monday, when reality TV impresario Mark Burnett and America Online announced an interactive Web program that -- to some in Hollywood -- sounded very familiar. Burnett and AOL said they were jointly developing a treasure-hunt game show called "Gold Rush." Slated to debut online this year, the show would award $1.

Mark Burnett may look like the mind-bogglingly rich reality-TV producer behind CBS' "Survivor," but that's because you don't know him. He says he longs to be a millionaire dealmaker like those on his new ABC show "Shark Tank." Even though he's made a fortune cranking out programs for virtually every network on the dial, he still worries about his personal cash flow, just like the young entrepreneurs who need help on his show. Or at least he can pretend that he worries about such things, if only for the sake of framing his latest TV series as perfect for the deepest recession in 70 years.