After making multiple moves to support Donald Trump using The Washington Post (which has steadily lost the publication thousands of subscribers), Amazon executive Jeff Bezos is now supporting the president via Prime Video, by adding nearly half of “The Apprentice” to the streaming service.
Seasons 1 through 7 of the NBC show are set to hit Prime over the next two months, rolling out weekly. Season 1 launched on Monday morning and will only be available in the U.S. The rollout will finish on April 27 with the release of Season 7.
The show was created by Emmy Award-winning producer Mark Burnett, who also created shows like “The Voice,” “Survivor” and “Shark Tank,” along with MGM Alternative, a division of Amazon MGM Studios. Burnett has since been named Special Envoy to the United Kingdom in Trump’s second cabinet.
According to the producer, the series is “one of the best shows” he was involved with and the hope is to create more fans of Trump through the series that launched him as a TV personality.
“This show is a love letter to New York City! ‘Survivor’ grew an entirely new massive audience as result of old seasons being binged during the pandemic,” Burnett said in a Monday statement. “On Monday, March 10, this same phenomenon will begin again… with ‘The Apprentice.’”
Trump noted in an additional statement that he looks forward to watching himself on TV again, saying the series “was a learning experience for all of us!”
After premiering in January 2004, “The Apprentice” averaged 20 million viewers each week, with 28 million watching the Season 1 finale.
The reality series painted Trump as a successful businessman ready to help others in the business world, but at the time, his businesses were actually facing multiple bankruptcies. In an editorial for Slate last year, another former producer of the show, Bill Pruitt, admitted that they “played fast and loose with the facts” at the time.
“No one involved in ‘The Apprentice’ — from the production company or the network, to the cast and crew — was involved in a con with malicious intent. It was a TV show, and it was made for entertainment. I still believe that,” he wrote at the time. “But we played fast and loose with the facts, particularly regarding Trump, and if you were one of the 28 million who tuned in, chances are you were conned.”
“The Apprentice” ran for 15 seasons from 2004-2017, including the final season hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger and seven “Celebrity Apprentice” iterations. It is notably the same title used for Ali Abbasi’s Oscar-nominated 2024 biopic on Trump starring Sebastian Stan.
“The Apprentice” Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.
