Los Angeles film, tv production fell 32% in strike-ravaged year

FILMING in Los Angeles County tumbled 32% last year, hobbled by strikes that closed down the sets of all major US studios.

Although the walkouts by writers and actors were settled in September and November, studios such as Walt Disney Co. and Netflix, Inc. couldn’t ramp up production quickly to reverse the decline, according to data released Tuesday from FilmLA, which administers permits to shoot in the region.

Output was down 36% in the fourth quarter from the same period a year earlier, the group said, with TV dramas virtually out of production. The aggregate data also includes commercials.

Overall, work on new TV shows and films was barely above the levels of 2020, when the industry halted production due to the global pandemic. Production of TV dramas was below that of three years ago.

“History offers no point of comparison to the present,” FilmLA President Paul Audley said in a statement. “The pandemic year aside, we have to look very far back — farther back than permit records allow — to find a time when production levels stayed so low, for so long.” — Bloomberg