Los Angeles Q1 Production Sinks 22% Year-Over-Year

The latest FilmLA quarterly production report is as grim as expected, showing a 22% year-over-year decline in on-location shooting in Los Angeles County with 5,295 shoot days logged.

The quarter, of course, opened with the deadly and destructive Palisades and Eaton wildfires that have displaced thousands of Los Angeles residents, but their impact on local production beyond postponements was minimal. A recent FilmLA analysis determined that combined, the areas burned by the fires had hosted 1,405 Shoot Days over the past four years – or roughly 1.3% of all regional filming.

“Loss of filming opportunity in no way compares to the cost of the Eaton and Palisades Fires in terms of loss of life, resident displacement and property damage,” noted FilmLA VP of Integrated Communications Philip Sokoloski. “The fires sent many productions scrambling to reschedule shoots and displaced hundreds of industry workers from their homes. But their impact on local filming levels appears to have been temporary.”

The true factors in LA’s steep decline remain the same as they have ever been, increasing global competition for a diminished number of film and TV productions amid cutbacks by Hollywood studios in how many projects they greenlight. Feature film production is down 28.9% year-over-year, while all TV production saw a 30.5% drop. The only category that came close to breaking even was commercials with a 2.1% drop.

FilmLA notes that the drop in TV production takes a particular toll on employment for entertainment workers. Annual shoot days for TV peaked in 2021 at 18,560, but have since fallen a staggering 58% to 7,716 shoot days in 2024.

In Q1 2025, TV dramas recorded 440 shoot days (down 38.9%), while reality TV recorded 969 shoot days (down 26.4%) and TV comedy dropped to just 110 shoot days (down 29.9%).

Since the vast majority of comedies have half-hour runtimes, they are currently not eligible for the California Film & TV Tax Credit Program. A pair of bills in the State Assembly and Senate could change that, as they propose changes to the eligibility requirements of the program that include reducing the runtime requirement to 22 minutes to allow for sitcoms and other half-hour TV programming to apply for the tax credit.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is also supporting an increase in the size of the program from $330 million to $750 million, which would make it the second largest program in the country behind only Georgia’s uncapped program. The California budget process is set to begin next month.

“The California Production Coalition estimates that the average location shoot adds $670,000 and 1,500 jobs a day to a local economy. And the County of Los Angeles and Beacon Economics report that there are 10,500 entertainment related businesses in the state,” Sokoloski said. “Numbers like these make it plain: California can’t afford to surrender any more work to its competitors.”

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