Los Angeles experienced a hefty decline in reality TV production as Hollywood worked to recover from dual labour strikes last year, according to statistics released on Wednesday.
Actors, writers and crew members have been hoping for a rebound in filming across all genres after last year’s strikes halted most production starting in July.
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But from April through June this year, the number of on-location filming days in the Los Angeles area fell 12.4% below already low levels of a year earlier, a report from permitting organization FilmLA found. The organization issued permits for 5,749 shooting days during the quarter this year.
In the comparable period in 2023, production had already started to wane ahead of a Writers Guild of America strike in May. Filming dropped further when actors walked off the job in July.
This year’s decline was driven by a 56.9% drop in reality TV production, the FilmLA report said.
The main reason, said FilmLA spokesman Philip Sokoloski, was likely the widespread curtailing of production from the high levels of recent years as investors demand profits from the media industry’s switch to streaming.
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Also, some studios are waiting to start new projects in case of another strike. The Teamsters union is trying to negotiate a new labour agreement before its contract with Hollywood studios expires on July 31.
Filming of scripted shows increased during the April-June quarter. Drama productions rose 98.3% and comedy productions more than doubled.
Feature-film production fell 3.3% in the quarter and commercial production dropped 5.1%, FilmLA said.
There were a few bright spots during the second quarter: Selling Sunset, John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA, American Idol, 90 Day Finance, The Golden Bachelorette, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Accident, Suicide or Murder all shot in the L.A. area during the quarter.
Still, the drop in production days for reality TV brought down the report’s entire television category, which has long been an anchor of production in the region and saw an estimated 28 percent decline compared to the same period last year. Notably, the Writers Guild of America strike began in the same period in 2023, deflating scripted production at that time.
“Generally speaking, unscripted television is a location-heavy format that generates significant permit volume,” FilmLA’s vp integrated communications, Philip Sokoloski, said in a statement. “The employment impact of reality production is lower than it is for scripted TV, and projects are not incentive-eligible through the State of California. It remains an important part of L.A.’s production economy.”
The FilmLA production report is the latest diagnostic of an ailing reality television production landscape. Earlier in the year, reality television insiders talked to The Hollywood Reporter about a downturn in the space that has narrowed job availability, tightened budgets and made executives even more cautious about taking risks on new and untested project concepts.
The phenomenon has been due, at least in part, to some of the same forces buffeting scripted television — consolidation in the space, the ongoing entertainment business contraction and cost-cutting initiatives at companies, sources said.
Producer Patrick Caligiuri (Naked and Afraid, American Idol) says FilmLA’s data “is not surprising because the numbers are reflecting what everybody in the industry has been feeling over the last year.” Caligiuri rang the alarm bells on the state of reality television in a TikTok post that stated “Reality TV is dead” and took off on LinkedIn earlier this year. He says that the struggle continues for many workers. “No one’s saying they’re making the same rate they were making before. Everybody’s saying at this point, ‘I’m lucky to get a job.’”