On-Location TV Production In Los Angeles Plunges Amid Strike Jitters & Uncertainty Over Corporate Restructuring, FilmLA Says

deadline.com:

Concern about looming labor unrest and uncertainty surrounding pending corporate restructuring have contributed to a 35.8% plunge in on-location TV production in Los Angeles in the first quarter of 2023 compared with the same period last year, according to the latest report from FilmLA, the city and county film permit office. “Over three consecutive quarters, we’ve seen a significant slowdown across all of the most economically important categories of on-location production,” said FilmLA President Paul Audley. “Particularly in the television world, decisions about future content direction are on hold, pending the outcome of corporate restructuring actions and industry labor negotiations.” Overall, local on-location shoot days fell by 24% in the first quarter this year compared to the first quarter last year – down from 9,832 to 7,476 shoot days – and 16.8% below the region’s five-year average of first quarters. (FilmLA notes that the five-year averages it cites exclude 2020, when L.A.

County production was shut down for three months amid the Covid pandemic.) FilmLA defines a “shoot day” as one crew’s permission to film at one or more defined locations during all or part of any given 24-hour period.

FilmLA data does not include production that occurs on certified sound stages or in jurisdictions it doesn’t serve. Read the full report here.

Asked about L.A.’s overall decline in on-location TV production, Audley told Deadline that “We have a multitude of things impacting it, and we’re not really clear which one is having the greatest impact.