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To paraphrase the Toby Keith song, Hollywood ain't as good as it once was. LA has lost movie and TV production over the past few years. California Governor Gavin Newsom is trying to reverse that trend, NPR's Mandalit del Barco asks if it's too late.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Last year, "The Kelly Clarkson Show" moved from LA to Manhattan.
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KELLY CLARKSON: I love this studio so much. I love living here in New York.
DEL BARCO: Now Gordon Ramsay is moving his competition show to Australia.
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GORDON RAMSAY: You can still become America's next master chef.
DEL BARCO: Many other shows and films have headed to Atlanta or New Orleans or farther to Canada or England.
PAUL AUDLEY: It's come to the point where when you're going to make a movie or a television show, the first question is, where can I get money? Because so many jurisdictions are offering incentives to go.
DEL BARCO: Paul Audley heads FilmLA, which partners with the city and county of Los Angeles. Reports from the nonprofit show 20% fewer scripted productions were shot in LA last year than the year before. The numbers are worse for unscripted TV - talk shows, reality shows and game shows. And Audley says the major American studios are shooting 75- to 80% of their feature films outside the country.
AUDLEY: In particular, Britain has offered incredible incentives and built massive new stages.
DEL BARCO: Audley notes that film and TV production peaked in 2016 when streaming companies ordered tons of content, and productions have still not recovered from the pandemic or from last year's Hollywood strikes by writers and performers. Add to that studio cost-cutting and industry-wide layoffs. Earlier this week, California Governor Gavin Newsom told reporters it's a crisis.
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GAVIN NEWSOM: The industry here is increasingly on life support, and it needs a pattern interrupt, and we need to jolt.
DEL BARCO: Newsom is hoping to more than double the state's available tax credits for productions to $750 million a year. If legislators pass his proposal, by next summer, California would offer the country's second most generous incentive package after Georgia, which does not limit the amount of tax credits it gives.
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NEWSOM: No one's naive that this is going to somehow solve everything.
PATRICK CALIGIURI: It's a Band-Aid on a much deeper wound.
DEL BARCO: Patrick Caligiuri is a producer who's worked on "American Idol," "Amazing Race" and "Big Brother."
CALIGIURI: This is a step in the right direction. It's also coming a little late. The whole ecosystem is completely changing.
DEL BARCO: Caligiuri says movie theaters are struggling, and many viewers choose to scroll through social media instead of channel surfing. He says runaway productions are just part of a bigger problem for Hollywood.
Mandalit del Barco, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF BUDDY RICH'S "BLUE AND SENTIMENTAL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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