No Deal for Culver City – (corrected)
NBC’s hit show Deal or No Deal has made its new deal with the State of Connecticut, meaning the loss of about 250 jobs in Culver City. The show is moving to Sonalysts Studios in Waterford, Ct., where it will qualify for a 30% production tax credit.
According to the Los Angeles Times story, the Connecticut production credit program includes all digital media production. California’s new production credit plan”which takes effect in July, is limited to new TV series that are produced for basic cable, or any TV series that is returning to California, as well as films that cost less than $75 million.” Here’s Variety’s version.
Thanks to Neil Hassman for pointing this one out.
really???/ how long have i been spewing this garbage about shows leaving town… welcome to reality people… prepare for more of this by the way … please let’s drag our feet some more…
California’s new plan, set to take effect in July 2010, isn’t actually just for film, per se, and is kind of quirky in what it does cover:
“The program, which takes effect in July, is limited to new TV series that are produced for basic cable, or any TV series that is returning to California, as well as films that cost less than $75 million”.
I’m a bit confused by how money will be meted out to those shows “returning to California”. Will the state beat whatever the production is getting from it’s current location/state AND pay for the relo? If not, I don’t see a huge run back to CA.
It’s all further complicated by lower costs-of-living in most anyplace other than CA, and the fact that many participants in moved productions (ie – Ugly Betty) purchased or leased places in those states and will definitely suffer when unloading them unless the market rebounds dramatically by July.
Ooooops, sorry…
Also, a producer friend of mine speculated that there will be a great “workaround” to aid the Networks in using the incentive for basic cable to get money for Network shows. As in the case of “Monk” and other “basic cable” shows, they see first life on basic but then get moved over to Network.
ABC Family is currently contemplating moving “Greek” to the main ABC network. Other basic cable shows are also already targeted as mid-season “replacements” on their respective networks because, as we all know, it wasn’t a real fruitful pilot season and content will be pretty spare if many of the “go” shows don’t do well.
Other States, actually send delegations to California, to lure film and television production jobs, to their States and away from California.
This is what California should do:
Send a letter to every State Governor, that has targeted California’s film and television industry. Tell these Governors, that you will target their largest industries and employers, with similar tax incentives. Tell these Governors, that if California loses 250 jobs, to for instance Connecticut , because of their predatory tax incentives, California will target a Connecticut company that employs 500 people, with similar tax incentives
You could call the legislation “The California Job Poaching Retribution Act ” It time to get serious and let other States know, its not wise to mess with California. California, if it were a country, would have the 7th largest economy in the World. Its time to stomp on the smaller States, that poach California’s industries and teach them a lesson that they won’t forget.
I don’t see it so much in terms of retribution, (or stomping or poaching) but Mike’s suggestion is not at all unsmart in purely business terms.
Don’t we in CA have delegations that seek business for the state from elsewhere? Seems like we must….
Can’t believe we’ve had an actor-Governor for so long, who is nearly termed out, and he couldn’t get any truly meaningful incentive program passed. And none of the expected candidates (Newsom, Brown) give me much hope either. If it was going to happen, it already should have.
Are they going to find 25 AFTRA models to hold those cases in CT, or are they taking the models with them? They can’t stop being a union show.
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Ed. Comment: There’s a rumor that they have blondes in Connecticut, too.
Rather than stomping or threatening or fighting, and I understand the desire to do that, but as it is jobs, all sorts of jobs are fluid. They move from one state to another. Or one country to another. No matter how much stomping and fighting you do, the problem will not be solved until either the government that is losing jobs gets smarter about retaining them or more clever about creating them. i mean one of the problems the country is going through has to do with all the jobs that were outsourced with no effort made to replace them. I’m aware of a couple of tv series being shot in Africa. Are we supposed to get belligerent about that? There will always be a lure, but the measure is taken by how well you work around it.
Mike #4: California does send out delegations and ad campaigns to lure entrepreneurs into the state — just like Michigan, for example, runs a lot of radio ads in California touting its growing high-tech and biotech industries and telling entrepreneurs here about the benefits of moving to Michigan.
But no other state is going to take seriously any bluster from California about tax breaks. First, the State of California has a massively out-of-kilter budget and can’t pony up for tax breaks — it can’t afford to forgo the income. Second, no business owner wants to pay the highest-in-the-nation personal taxes (income and sales) in California.
The Golden Age of the Golden State is over. It’s nice to think that we can plug all the holes in the state’s economy one by one with tax breaks, but there are too many and they’re too big.
Michael #6: turns out that Connecticut is not so far from New York City, which has a surplus of pretty girls who come from the four corners of the Earth to become models and actresses and find it next to impossible to break into those fields. So I don’t see any difficulty for the producers in finding 25 pretty girls capable of opening briefcases and then either smiling brightly or shaking their heads sympathetically.
Then there is the issue of….Hollywoodcentricity…..film began as a medium and business in NJ and NY…then migrated to California….but in time the industry spread all over the US….then headed north. Incentives began to bring the jobs back to the US. As long as the job goes to SAG members, fine…it should matter if those jobs are LA, NY or anywhere else because we are a NATIONAL union. The union needs to represent all its members and do what it can to get all its members work.
The only way to even out the playing field is for a national incentive to occur, but then locals will still fight to bring the work to their own.
We need to focus on keeping the work in the US, for union actors (and crew, and BTl…etc)….