David Meltzer
Rob Lowe lamented the state of film and television production in California on a recent episode of his podcast, insisting that state leadership’s handling of the massive domestic production exodus over the last several years has been “criminal.”
“It’s cheaper to bring 100 American people to Ireland than to walk across the lot at Fox, past the sound stages, and do it there,” Lowe told former Parks & Recreation co-star Adam Scott of his game show The Floor, explaining why the production is based at Ardmore Studios outside of Dublin.
Incredulous at the revelation that Lowe’s U.S. game show shoots internationally, Scott also remarked that “nothing shoots in Los Angeles” anymore, wondering if Parks & Recreation would be filming in the city if it were made today.
Do you think if we shot ‘Parks’ right now, we’d be in Budapest?” he asked, to which Lowe answered: “One-hundred percent we would be. We’d be in Budapest.
Lowe certainly isn’t alone in his frustrations about the decline in domestic production and, more specifically, how that has impacted California. Per a recent report from FilmLA, 2024 was the second-least-productive year for L.A. production (after only pandemic-stricken 2020), down more than 30% over five-year averages.
There are multiple compounding reasons why California production is no longer booming the way that it once was, and state leadership has recently turned its attention to finding solutions.
During the podcast episode, Lowe claims “there are no tax credits [in California], so like, all those other places are offering 40% — 40%. And then on top of that, there’s other stuff that they do. And then, that’s not even talking about union stuff. It’s just tax, economics of it all, so it’s criminal what California and L.A. have let happen — it’s criminal. Everybody should be fired.”
In fact, California does have a tax incentive program, currently offering $330M annually. However, television productions in particular have long complained that the amount of money there for small screen projects is decreasing as the vast majority of past successful applicants are grandfathered in year after year as long as they remain on the air or online, leading to application periods when just a couple of new shows see any credits.
In February, an impact report from the Entertainment Union Coalition revealed that, from 2015 to 2020, about 50% of the 312 productions that did not qualify for California’s tax credit incentive relocated to another area, resulting in an approximate loss of 28,000 jobs and $7.7 billion in economic activity.
California has increasingly had to compete with enticing tax incentives offered by other states and territories. Domestically, Louisiana and Georgia still remain among the top rivals to California, though New Jersey, Nevada, and Utah have been putting more tax credit money on the table recently as well. As Lowe and Scott mentioned, international production has also become more alluring as Canadian provinces, the UK, and more competitive than ever European nations up their own incentives.
In October, California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed expanding the tax credit to $750M annually to revitalize the program. Newsom’s proposed expansion of the tax credit is also not yet set in stone, given California’s 2025-26 budget is still being negotiated, though it still seems likely to be approved.
The Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee is set to hear testimony regarding that proposal on Wednesday morning, including from the leaders of two prominent initiatives that are aimed at bringing production back to the state.
That comes as California lawmakers have finally updated a pair of bills introduced in February to “amend, update, and modernize” the current tax incentive program beyond Newsom’s proposal. With the amended language as of March 25, the bills offer a number of solutions, including increasing the available credit for an individual production to 35% for all expenses incurred in Los Angeles.
The production community itself has also been committed to solving this issue. Following the devastating wildfires that brought even more financial strife to Los Angeles after years of back-to-back blows, the Entertainment Union Coalition launched Keep California Rolling around the same time that some of the industry’s biggest stars as well as top film and TV writers and producers started a similar movement called Stay in LA. Both are aimed at not only calling attention to the issue but lobbying lawmakers to engage meaningfully in finding solutions.
