\n\tThe expansion to California\u2019s film and TV tax credit program hasn\u2019t notably curbed lethargic production levels in Los Angeles, at least not yet.<\/p>\n
\n\tL.A. saw a nearly 13 percent drop in shoot days from April to June compared to the same period last year and an eight percent drop compared to the previous quarter, according to the latest report from permitting office FilmLA issued on Thursday. Production in the region trails the five-year average by about 36 percent.<\/p>\n
\n\tSo far, 170 projects have been awarded tax credits under the newest iteration of the program. These productions comprise a growing portion of shoot days in L.A., with 33 percent of all production for features coming from titles receiving subsidies. Several of them are independent productions, like Chester\u2019s Awakening, Kill Royale and They Know.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn a statement, L.A. mayor Karen Bass said she\u2019s \u201cdoubling down\u201d on the subsidy program by \u201cfighting for an uncapped tax credit.\u201d Other changes she wants to include feature expanding the eligible categories of production to include competition reality TV series and allowing for above-the-line costs to qualify for incentives.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ll keep cutting red tape and slashing permit fees at the local level, because this industry is core to the history, culture, and economic power of Los Angeles,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn a bright spot, shooting for TV shows, which tends to be the biggest driver of production in L.A., increased an estimated 34 percent over the previous quarter, posting 1,607 shoot days. Still, the category is down almost 28 percent, with a decline in reality TV, which isn\u2019t eligible for subsidies, accounting for much of the drop.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cRecent Emmy nominated productions such as Hacks, along with California Film and TV Tax Credit recipient The Pitt, have demonstrated the strong economic and creative contributions these types of shows can bring to the region,\u201d said FilmLA CEO Denise Gutches in a statement. \u201cBecause scripted television production supports more industry jobs than any other production category, helping to attract these types of productions is an important step towards bringing filming back to the region, restoring jobs, and strengthening our local production economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tProduction for features fared much worse compared to TV, logging a nearly 20 percent decline year-over-year. It\u2019s a major drop compared last quarter, when the category saw a more than 20 percent increase over the five-year average with 687 shoot days. In that span, roughly 22 percent of all shooting came from state-incentivized titles.<\/p>\n
\n\tFilmLA also noted that shooting levels for commercials continue to struggle, decreasing by roughly 22 percent year-over-year.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn what may be a silver lining, even as filming activity slows in L.A. the state is still seeing a slight uptick in spending overall. California saw $1.33 billion in production spend that rose 5 percent year-over-year as filming count in the state overall grew by 11 percent, industry tracker ProdPro detailed in its Q2 2026 report <\/a>on July 15.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The expansion to California\u2019s film and TV tax credit program hasn\u2019t notably curbed lethargic production levels in Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,70326],"class_list":["post-409888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-production-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}