{"id":464164,"date":"2026-09-15T05:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T05:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/464164\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T05:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T05:38:08","slug":"nithya-raman-targets-hollywood-crisis-in-first-general-election-ad-daily-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/464164\/","title":{"rendered":"Nithya Raman targets Hollywood crisis in first general election ad \u2013 Daily News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is making Hollywood\u2019s production crisis a centerpiece of her first general election ad, accusing Mayor Karen Bass of failing to act with enough urgency to stem the loss of entertainment jobs as filming continues to migrate elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The 30-second ad, narrated by actor Bob Odenkirk and timed to air around Monday night\u2019s Emmy Awards, borrows Hollywood\u2019s familiar \u201cFor Your Consideration \u201cformat and promises Raman would \u201cfight to keep Hollywood in Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Its debut opens another front in the general election contest between Raman and Bass over one of Los Angeles\u2019 signature industries. Raman is arguing that City Hall has moved too slowly as production and entertainment employment have declined, while Bass points to steps her administration has taken to reduce filming costs and red tape and is attacking Raman\u2019s own record on the City Council.<\/p>\n

But beneath the campaign fight is considerable overlap in what the two candidates say Los Angeles needs, and frustration from some industry advocates who say the city has yet to make the fundamental changes necessary to compete with other production hubs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a political issue,\u201d Cale Thomas, a special makeup effects artist and member of the industry advocacy group Stay in L.A., said Monday. \u201cOur community is not a political pawn for anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raman\u2019s ad is scheduled to air twice during KNBC\u2019s pre-Emmys newscast, again during its late-night post-Emmys newscast and during the \u201cToday\u201d show Tuesday morning, according to her campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entertainment industry isn\u2019t just the creative engine of Los Angeles, it\u2019s an economic engine for the entire city,\u201d Raman said in a statement Monday, pointing to the restaurants, hotels, prop houses, rental yards and other businesses that depend on film and television production.<\/p>\n

\u201cCity Hall should be fighting every day to keep those jobs here, instead of watching passively as Hollywood is hollowed out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Raman argues that the problems are structural and that the city has failed to respond aggressively enough as other production hubs have competed for work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no real city film office \u2014 permitting is handled by a third-party nonprofit, and the mayor didn\u2019t appoint a dedicated film liaison until late 2025, years into the collapse,\u201d Raman said. She also pointed to what she described as slow and unpredictable permitting, conflicting requirements among city departments, high fees and decades-old neighborhood filming restrictions.<\/p>\n

Her plan calls for staffing the L.A. film office in the Mayor\u2019s Office with industry veterans, making permitting faster and more predictable, reducing or eliminating permit fees for smaller independent productions, and streamlining neighborhood filming restrictions. Raman also says she would advocate for more competitive, multiyear state and federal film tax credits.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther cities, states and countries are funding dedicated agencies and offering aggressive incentives to take our film industry, and we have let them,\u201d Raman said.<\/p>\n

The pitch comes as Los Angeles continues to struggle with a prolonged production downturn. Permitted on-location production in the Greater Los Angeles area totaled 4,711 shoot days during the second quarter of 2026, down 12.7% from the same period a year earlier, according to FilmLA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"AA production crew prepares for filming at Warner Center Park in Woodland Hills on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026. The Los Angeles City Council is expected to consider, potentially as early as March, a package of nine motions introduced in December by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian aimed at streamlining the city\u2019s film permitting process. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News\/SCNG)<\/p>\n

Bass\u2019 campaign rejected Raman\u2019s contention that City Hall has been passive, pointing to the mayor\u2019s support for California\u2019s expanded film and television credit and changes her administration has made to filming policies in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Bass issued an executive directive in May 2025<\/a> directing city departments to reduce costs and streamline processes for on-location filming. Her administration has since cut filming fees at Griffith Observatory by 70%, reopened the LA Central Library to filming<\/a>, reduced some requirements for city personnel on film sets and made other changes intended to speed up production.<\/a><\/p>\n

Bass also appointed Board of Public Works President Steve Kang<\/a> as the city\u2019s film and television liaison in August 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cKaren Bass literally created the first film & TV tax credit, and then she helped expand it \u2014 the most substantive thing done to help keep jobs in LA,\u201d Alex Stack, Bass campaign\u2019s spokesperson, said in a statement Monday.<\/p>\n

The Bass campaign also sought to turn Raman\u2019s record at City Hall against her.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the other hand, Nithya Raman never introduced a single piece of legislation to help the film industry \u2014 and when the Council took up seven items in March 2026 to streamline film permitting and address the production downturn, Raman recused herself from four of them because of her husband\u2019s business interests,\u201d Stack said.<\/p>\n

At a March 4 council meeting, Raman said after consulting with the City Attorney that she believed she should recuse herself from four film-related matters \u201cout of an abundance of caution.\u201d Her husband works in the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n

Raman did participate in votes on other film-related measures that day. She also seconded at least one film-related motion during her council tenure.<\/p>\n

For Thomas, however, the question is less about which candidate can claim credit than whether either approach will fundamentally change the cost and difficulty of filming in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Thomas, who has advocated for changes to the city filming rules through Stay in L.A., said Bass\u2019 administration has taken steps to reduce filming costs and barriers but argued that the changes have been too limited to address the broader structural problems facing productions in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

For example, he said reducing the cost of filming at an individual city property does not necessarily make a shoot affordable once a production factors in expenses such as parking, base camps and required city personnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks good from afar, but when you actually do the math, it\u2019s not really helping that many people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also pointed to the structure of the city\u2019s film liaison position. Kang is president of the Board of Public Works in addition to serving as Bass\u2019 liaison to the film and television industry. Thomas said competing production centers have larger teams dedicated specifically to making filming easier.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteve is a really great guy. He is doing a good job, but he\u2019s only doing that job part time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That criticism touches on one area Raman has highlighted in her own proposal: expanding the city\u2019s film operation and staffing it with people with industry experience.<\/p>\n

Still, Thomas said he sees substantial overlap between Raman\u2019s proposal, Bass\u2019 initiatives, and film-related measures pushed by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of overlap,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are all things that we, as a community and as a grassroots organization at Stay in L.A., have been advocating for for the last year and a half, and it doesn\u2019t take a year and a half to implement any of this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas argued that City Hall\u2019s response has been too slow regardless of who receives political credit for individual proposals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have three months to wait three months ago,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have three months to wait a year ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Thomas, the sudden prominence of Hollywood\u2019s troubles in the mayoral campaign is secondary to what happens to workers and businesses that have already endured years of reduced production.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur small businesses, our families, and our communities have been here long before any of these two people have run for office,\u201d he said. \u201cWe matter. We mattered, not now. We mattered two years ago, five years ago, 50 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can fix it,\u201d he added, \u201cjust fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is making Hollywood\u2019s production crisis a centerpiece of her first general election…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1400,7,48,52,51,47,5436,137,50,49,100],"class_list":["post-464164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-2026-elections","tag-california","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-city-council","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464164","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=464164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}