MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Before President Trump was in the White House, people competed to work for him on an NBC competition reality show called "The Apprentice."
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You're fired.
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KELLY: This week, Amazon added the first season of "The Apprentice" to Prime Video. More seasons are on the way, along with a Prime Video documentary and docuseries on first lady Melania Trump. NPR TV critic Eric Deggans is here to talk about Amazon's deals and how the broader TV landscape may be changing during Trump's second term. Hey there.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Hi.
KELLY: So I need to mention before we get started, Amazon is among NPR's financial supporters. We do cover them like any other company. I will note, Puck News is reporting Amazon is paying 40 million bucks for these shows focused on Melania Trump, which prompts me to ask, is Amazon courting favor with the Trumps?
DEGGANS: Well, certainly that's what some industry watchers, including me, are concerned about, I mean, especially given the way Amazon owner Jeff Bezos kept The Washington Post, which he also owns, from endorsing Trump's opponent Kamala Harris before the 2024 election. Now, Bezos has said he's optimistic about Trump's second term, and Amazon donated $1 million to the president's inaugural fund. We reached out to Amazon about the perception that these deals court favor from the president, but they wouldn't comment beyond what they've already said.
KELLY: Well, and I'll jump in and note, I mean, it's possible, of course, that execs at Amazon just decided, look, the election proves there's a lot of interest in Donald and Melania Trump. Let's have some more TV projects about them.
DEGGANS: Absolutely. But it's also quite a turnaround from 2015, when NBC severed ties with Trump following his derogatory comments about Mexican immigrants when he announced his first candidacy for president.
KELLY: OK, fair. So Amazon clearly sees a market out there for Melania Trump, for "The Apprentice." Is this playing out, Eric, beyond Amazon? Talk to me about whether we're seeing a broader shift here.
DEGGANS: I think there are more projects coming to television that target an audience that might be considered Trump-friendly. The Wall Street Journal's Joe Flint had a great story noting the success of Tim Allen's new ABC show "Shifting Gears," which features the comic as a gruff owner of a car restoration business. Now, Tim Allen is publicly conservative, and his character listens to Joe Rogan's podcast. And the A&E channel announced the return of "Duck Dynasty," which is an unscripted show with stars who have appeared at Trump rallies. And Netflix also recently announced a deal with comic Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico, quote, "a floating island of garbage" during a rally for Trump in October.
KELLY: Oh, yeah.
DEGGANS: But some of these projects have been in the works for a while. I mean, ABC announced it was making a pilot for Allen's show about a year ago. So this could be a combination of TV programmers creating material for an audience they see expressing itself more prominently and a way of courting President Trump and the people who support him.
KELLY: Are there are other things going on, Eric? - other trends that might also be informing these programming decisions?
DEGGANS: For sure. I'm seeing more shows focused on Western culture, rural culture, country music - parts of pop culture championed by some conservatives. I think the success of the Western-themed TV drama "Yellowstone" inspired copycats, like a new drama coming on Netflix about Texas ranchers, "Ransom Canyon." And Netflix also has been courting comics from the podcast "Manosphere" for a while, with recent specials from Andrew Schulz and Bert Kreischer.
KELLY: It's interesting because it's such a contrast from these last few years, when Hollywood was championing projects that captured diversity in America. Are those projects likely to be sidelined?
DEGGANS: Well, certainly that's the fear. I mean, it takes a while to make some movies and TV shows, so we're still seeing new projects with strong racial diversity components, like a version of "Snow White" starring Rachel Zegler, who is Latina. But we're also seeing lots of companies roll back their diversity and inclusion efforts following these anti-DEI executive orders from President Trump, including at PBS and Disney. Many Hollywood studios and TV networks created high-level diversity positions years ago because representation was so bad. With these rollbacks, there's serious concern we'll see the same old problems resurface that it took 20 years to overcome in the first place.
KELLY: NPR's TV critic Eric Deggans, thank you.
DEGGANS: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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