Alarming Hollywood report reveals massive decline in US film and TV production

The US film and television production market has lost some serious ground, according to an alarming new report examining the industry over the past 25 years.Studios used to spend 74% of their film production budgets in the US 25 years ago, and they now spend 42% of it, according to the report from a coalition of Hollywood unions, including IATSE, the Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA.Meanwhile, when it comes to TV, the number has fallen by about a third, from 94% to 64%.The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story The report comes as Congress considers whether a 20 to 30% production incentive would help activate the domestic film and TV industry.Those who support the incentive say the US needs to counter incentives already provided by other countries such as Canada, the UK and others, arguing that state-based incentives aren’t enough.Congress members have looked into the issue of production jobs in the US going down since the end of Peak TV in 2022.However, the report, conducted by EY, indicates the longevity of the downturn, as the movie and TV business became global in the early 2000s.The report says that while productions have grown substantially, the US shares a smaller stake of it.The study looked into movies and TV episodes that take a significant amount of funds to make, such as films with budgets of $5 million or more, in 2025 dollars, and TV episodes costing at least $1 million, for about 40 minutes or shorter, and at least $1.7 million for episodes longer than 40 minutes.In the past 25 years, the amount major studios spent on production rose from $3 billion to $7 billion.TV spending increased even more during that time, from $933 million to $8.4 billion.However, with all the differences that exist with the current TV landscape from that of the early 200...