According to the report, the entertainment industry in Los Angeles suffered sustained losses over the past three years

As part of a widely recognized and troubling shift, the Los Angeles film and television industry has suffered significant economic losses over the past three years – a result of the changing industry landscape as well as the growth of global competitors, according to a report released Wednesday.

From 2021 to 2023, the Los Angeles metropolitan area captured an increasingly smaller share of qualified film and television projects on a global scale after decades of dominating the industry. According to the 22-page report from FilmLA, a nonprofit organization and the official film bureau, nearly 23% of all qualifying projects were filmed in LA in 2021, but that number dropped to 22% in 2022 and even further to just 2023 18% of the City and County of Los Angeles.

While LA remains the location for most projects, the report said, it is increasingly losing contracts to global competitors such as Georgia, New York, United Kingdom and Ontario, Canada.

“Although Los Angeles continued to be the top filming destination among all scripted content released in 2023, its overall market share/capture declined compared to previous years,” the report said.

There were labor strikes last year from SAG-AFTRA And the Writers Guild of America brought production in Hollywood to a halt, impacting the industry’s entire output. And the industry has suffered losses more broadly that go beyond what is seen in California.

Globally, film and television projects in active filming fell 7% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, according to a study by ProdPro, a company that collects data on the entertainment industry.

Technological advancements have impacted the entertainment sector just like other industries in recent years. Changes in how streaming services work compared to traditional media, for example, have changed the production landscape. Economists believe this has all led to a global decline – even as the number of cinema releases rose sharply last year due to two large-scale, simultaneous labor strikes, the report said.

“What is upsetting the future of workers in the entertainment industry is much like what roiled U.S. manufacturing decades ago: new technologies that have transformed the business and reduced the need for workers, as well as the emergence of cheaper production bases elsewhere in the country USA and abroad. “The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year.

Hollywood, long the heart of global film and television production, has lost increasing numbers of jobs in recent years, according to the new FilmLA report and other economic analysis.

In Los Angeles County, employment in the entertainment industry reached its lowest level in more than 30 years. That’s according to a Times analysis by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reports that the high cost of living in California has helped push other filming locations out of L.A.’s long-standing interest stock. Georgia, for example, has attracted a growing number of projects with tax incentives — estimated to bring in $4 billion in 2023, according to state officials.

Meanwhile, the report said the number of streaming series releases filmed in LA fell 27.9% last year, but that decline was only 14.7% industry-wide. When it comes to TV movies – a category dominated by British Columbia and Los Angeles remains the second-largest destination – the number of these projects fell 14.9% in LA, while the industry as a whole actually saw an increase of 10.5% was recorded.

When the strikes broke out last year, the Los Angeles area’s national share of film and television employment fell to 27% from 35% the previous year, according to a report released in May of this year by the Otis College of Art and Design LA with entitled “Die Differently: Hollywood in the Changing Streaming Era”.

However, this report also notes that some changes are more likely a result of the evolution of media as a whole in the digital age.

“Los Angeles is still the pinnacle of the entertainment industry, but the industry itself is undergoing once-in-a-generation changes,” said Dr. Patrick Adler, an economist and assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong, in the report. “It is less dependent on film and television studios, more focused on online content creation, live events and gaming, and also much more technical and managerial than ever before.”

“What it means to work in Hollywood is vastly different today than it was ten years ago,” Adler said in the report.

And according to the FilmLA report, Los Angeles continues to dominate the industry on a global scale, despite what the report describes as “significant losses” in recent years. In California, the entertainment industry contributed about $43 billion in wages to the state economy in 2023, the report said.

Still, FilmLA President Paul Adley said there remain concerns about the future of the industry in the state. “But how long can California survive on an ever-thinner slice of a shrinking manufacturing pie — or help businesses and families thrive?” he said in the report.

The report suggests financial incentives from the government to keep the industry afloat. Earlier this year, a $4.1 million grant program was launched by the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity and the County Film Office for small and micro-businesses affected by the 2023 Hollywood labor strikes and the COVID-19 pandemic were affected.

More such government incentives are advocated by FilmLA to maintain LA’s position as an entertainment capital.

“Audley and others fear that losing California’s global manufacturing share poses more risks than international bragging rights,” the report said. “Hollywood’s coveted leadership position in entertainment production has been achieved through new business investment for over a century.”