Dan Abrams discusses the enduring popularity of cop shows despite cancellation attempts sparked by the 2020 George Floyd backlash. Plus how “On Patrol: Live became 2024’s top entertainment program. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.
Chapter 1: Who is Dan Abrams and what are his contributions to cop shows?
Dan Abrams is one of the most prolific producers of law enforcement and legal content in the entertainment industry. His latest show On Patrol Live was the number one entertainment show of 2024 on Friday and Saturday nights. And it was just picked up for 90 more episodes.
In this episode, we speak to Abrams about cop shows and their lasting popularity despite efforts to cancel them after the death of George Floyd. I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Saturday, March 8th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now is Dan Abrams, the host and producer of On Patrol Live. Dan, thank you so much for joining us.
Chapter 2: Why are cop shows still popular despite attempts to cancel them?
My pleasure. Nice to be here. You've done so much in the legal and law enforcement space. For those in our audience who may not be as familiar with your background as we are, can you give us a brief overview of your professional career?
Yeah. I mean, I am a lawyer by training and I use that pretty quickly to pivot into media where I ended up covering some of the highest profile criminal cases from the last, sad to say, because it exposes my age, the last three decades. I started really when I covered the OJ Simpson case, I was in court every day for that criminal trial and civil case. So that was certainly the
the biggest case I'd covered up to that point. And then since then I've covered all the biggest trials around the country. And then recently I started a company called Law and Crime. We now have a 7 million YouTube subscribers and it's a massive legal and crime channel.
But that background is, I think, why the producers came to me to host what is now On Patrol Live, which is a live police show where we follow police departments in real time. I think that they wanted someone who had a bit of a legal background to host the show.
Chapter 3: What makes 'On Patrol Live' different from other police shows?
And this is a show that is different than any other police show out there because, you know, unlike let's say a cops where it's sort of a highlight reel of crazy moments, we're actually live in eight or nine departments at once. And so we'll go to a department and we'll see someone approaching a vehicle or responding to a call.
And like the officers, the audience doesn't know what's gonna happen next. The officer doesn't know what's gonna happen next. The officer doesn't know who's in that car. The officer doesn't know exactly what's happening at a domestic call. And so the audience joins the officers in that experience. And I think that's part of what makes the show so compelling.
Yeah, and look, the numbers are really proving that it is a successful concept. Number one entertainment program on Friday and Saturday nights just got a 90-episode pickup. That's pretty much unheard of in the current TV landscape. What do you think makes this show so successful?
I think it's that people are interested in policing. I think there is an element of uncertainty throughout the show. And I also think that watching police engage with the community is something people have long been interested in. And I think that there's no other place where they can see it in real time. And as a result, I think that the concept
The kinds of departments that we follow, we try to follow a mix of departments around the country and make this a really compelling show year after year.
When you say mix of departments, what do you mean? Like different sizes of departments, different areas of the country?
Correct. So it'll be both geographical diversity and also diversity of types of departments, the size of the department. We're in everything from Las Vegas, one of the top 10 biggest police departments in America, to Hazen, Arkansas, where we ride with the chief of the department and the two folks who work in his office. So it's a pretty diverse group of departments.
And what's interesting is, of course, that the laws are different, sometimes state to state, too. particularly on kind of drug crimes. So, you know, that's part of what makes this interesting is we can compare what's happening around the country with different police departments.
Well, obviously this show, as many other shows like it have proven, there's a very large dedicated audience for cop shows. Things changed though in 2020. I wanted you to unpack that for us. What happened back in 2020 after the death of George Floyd and the backlash against police shows like Live PD and Cops?
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Chapter 4: How did the George Floyd incident affect cop shows?
And the reason we need to talk about it now is so that we don't again have the overreaction, which is all cops are bad. See, see, all cops are bad. Hmm. That's not the reaction or shouldn't be the reaction, in my view, to an incident where something happens with police. where a police officer engages in some form of wrongdoing.
Because no matter what career you're talking about, considering there are hundreds of thousands of police officers around the country, you are going to have some bad cops. That doesn't mean that the rest of the cops, the vast majority, overwhelming majority of cops who are doing really hard work every day,
aren't doing really good work. Sure. I'm curious about the experience of Live PD being canceled from your perspective. I don't know how much of this you can reveal, but can you give us a glimpse behind the scenes about what that was like, the atmosphere then, and what it's been like to try to come back from that and have another cop-focused show?
Look, I was upset. I made it very clear I was upset. There was no secret in the fact that I was upset that the show was canceled because I liked the show, I liked working on the show, and I thought that it was unfortunate that there was this national overreaction that ultimately led to this ridiculous defund the police movement.
And so I was not happy about it and always wanted to do something like it again. and believe that it wasn't just something that I liked. I also thought it was important. I think it's important for people to see what it's like to be a police officer.
And by the way, there are people who watch On Patrol Live who see a scene with an officer, and police officers will be watching, and they'll say, oh, that officer shouldn't have done that. Okay, fair enough. That's part of what the transparency involves. But the point is, it's, I think, a good thing for people to be able to see what an ordinary cop has to do every day.
The problem is, in the media in general, most of the time, the vast majority of time, when people are talking about police, it's a police-involved shooting, right? It's a cop either who's been shot or, more regularly, the media covers it when a police officer shoots a civilian. Mm-hmm.
And that's the public's understanding of policing, unfortunately, in a lot of cases and in particular communities. And, of course, the majority of officers never fire their weapon in the line of duty ever. Ever. And so now we're focusing on what 98% of policing is, which is getting a call, someone saying there's a problem, there's an issue, an officer arriving at a scene not known.
exactly who's who not knowing who the reporting party is not knowing was this person the victim and wait we heard that there was someone breaking in from the back door what there's no oh there was no back door break in okay the uncertainty that police officers have arriving at a scene if you don't understand that you really can't understand what it's like to be a police officer
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Chapter 5: What was Dan Abrams' reaction to the cancellation of Live PD?
It's critical. Have you seen attitudes toward law enforcement changing in recent years?
Well, look... I will tell you that when you watch these officers in action, there's still a lot of people who treat police officers terribly. I wouldn't say most people, but there's still way too many who, the minute there is some interaction... Remember, in most cases, the police have been called to that scene and then get attitude from people who arrive there or aren't treated well.
Happens all the time. But more broadly... I think that there has been a recognition, even among, let's call them police critics, that the defund the police movement was absurd and that it didn't work. And that's why liberal cities around the country that did engage in it are refunding the police and rehiring police officers because they realized that it made no sense.
So from that perspective, yes. I think that there's been a something of a reevaluation. But again, there's going to be another incident. So you just the more people know more broadly and more specifically about what police officers do. I think the better to not let single incidents define policing as opposed to the broad spectrum of the work that they do.
2022.
Got it. So pretty quickly. And we did see the fallout from the defund the police movement happen pretty fast. I think it took a lot of people by surprise how quickly we saw the negative results of that. So do you feel that the beginning of this project actually was aided by this maybe shift that began even back in 2022 about attitudes about police?
Maybe, but I'll tell you that as soon as Live PD was canceled, I was getting outreach from people asking me about the project. So from a show perspective, I think it was really just a question of when. There's no doubt that in the immediate months after the show went off the air... To many, the show would have been too hot. Couldn't do it. Can't risk it. Don't want to risk the protests.
Don't want to risk the backlash, etc. I do think that that faded to some degree. But again, my perspective publicly never changed, right? I mean, from the moment the show went off the air, I was complaining about it and saying that this show ought to still be on the air.
What about the trends of rooting for the bad guy like we've seen with Luigi Mangione and his popularity among some groups? Have you seen shifting trends on that front?
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