Well hurrah. Scripted television in Los Angeles is on the upswing. Sadly reality TV and film production are not making upwards progress but we’re happy for any and all good news here.
And who can we thank for the uptick in scripted?
Netflix, Hulu and Amazon with their unquenchable thirst for original content.
TV dramas and sitcoms showed big gains in 2015 offsetting the drop off in unscripted. (Do we think it”s over for reality? Hell no.) Overall, production grew nearly 10% over 2014 figures and drama grew 19%. Sitcoms doubled and non scripted fell 8%.
Who relocated to LA to take advantage of the newly invigorated incentive packages? American Horror Story, Secrets and Lies, and Veep. Transparent shoots in LA as does Grandfathered and Hulu’s Casual.
Why is film production not growing? There’s heavy competition from parts of the country where the tax incentives are ginormous. California tax incentives exclude actors salaries which are a big part of film production budgets.
Commercials were flat in 2015, with about 5,200 productions daily. Oh yeah, and if you’re shooting and need gear, try gqcrentals.com.