Commercial Filming is Down - Bad Sign for Economy?

Commercial film production in California has been a bright spot for some time. Until lately it has been fairly robust. Now it is down about 8% over last year. Is that because companies are filming their commercials somewhere else, or have they given up on trying to seduce the public to buy and are simply not advertising?

Fortunately ad agencies and the media won't notice it if their bottom line is negatively affected by the loss of revenue from corporate advertising, because it will be more than made up with political ads for the next two years. (Heaven help us.) But what does it mean if corporations are not making new commercials? They have plenty of money, but they're not hiring, they're not expanding, and now they're not advertising?

Sharon

More Good News

There has been a lot of good news about the effectiveness of the California tax incentive program to keep film production in our state. The LA County Economic Development Corp. announced that the incentive program pumped $3.8 billion into the California economy and created 20,000 jobs in the last two years.

Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes from Sylmar proposed a bill to extend the program for five years after the current program expires in 2014. The bill has passed the Assembly, and goes before the Senate in the next two weeks.

Call your State Senator and tell him or her that you want them to support the proposed legislation. It's a pretty fair bet that senators from LA County will support it. The question is, will the senators in other districts support it? Do they get it? Do they understand that the program benefits all of California?

By the way, Larry Crowne with Tom Hanks & Julia Roberts was filmed in our back yard. So let's support Hanks and his Playtone Production Company.

Sharon