Tax Incentives Won't Solve Hollywood's Problems
Andy Marken March 18, 2025
0 Comments
Taking the wrong boy was a lucky break. In other words, this doesn't count. But you have to pay anyway. You're a fool to pay, but pay you must. Ginjiro Takeuchi, High and Low, Toho Studios, 1963
California, or more specifically LA (Los Angeles), or even more specifically Hollywood, has been the center of the video content industry since C.B. DeMille directed/shot the first feature-length movie in the area in 1913.
It took ten years before city fathers christened the area with its now famous (infamous) Hollywood sign (originally Hollywoodland but )
Since then, the town has been the self-anointed movie/show capital of the world.
For years, it did an outstanding job of hiding secrets and hyping the overnight success of stars, directors/producers, production crew members and post-production magicians who stuck it out and survived.
TV was going to be the movie industry's demise, but it only boosted the industry.
The networks needed content to fill their weekly schedules with scripted/unscripted series, talk/game shows, ad work, movies, stuff.
Nearly everyone with talent, expertise and ability was working.
The town was running on all cylinders and quickly became the center of the creative content industry while controlling as much as 40 percent of the world's video content.
People stood in lines to get their seats in theater seats. Other folks turned on their sets the minute they got home and watched whatever was on until they dragged themselves into their beds. What no studio head would tell Wall Street, his (yes, it was usually a male) shareholders or the public at large is that it is at best a marginally profitable business.
Coin Flip - The content industry promotes its major hits (moneymakers) like crazy while quickly overlooking the red ink projects but it's about a 50/50 chance of a film/show making money.
People cost money. Equipment costs money. Studio/location shoots cost money. Sets/lighting/electrical cost money. Feeding folks costs money. Hyping the shows/movies costs money. Money costs money.
Source - Warner Bros
It's only because studios have some of the most creative accountants who do things with numbers, columns, rules and regulations that enable them to make Wall Street/shareholders happy and keep their bosses out of jail.
The studio heads were free to hob nob with the rich, famous, politically connected people who like to associate with folks in the fun, profitable business.
Okay, maybe just a kinda' fun business, but it's the best paying job studio execs could find.
None of them gave much thought to the guy in Silicon Valley who determined he could sign people up to download shows/movies from the internet so they could watch the stuff when they wanted, where they wanted and on the screen they wanted.
In fact, when Reed Hastings switched from sending discs to subscribers in red envelopes to streaming, they probably said, Sure we'll license our stuff to his little company and make even more money because folks want it, we got it. After all, we rule the creative universe!
Under Hastings and Ted Sarandos and later Sarandos/Greg Peters, home entertainment changed.
As FX's CEO, Fred Landgraf, has said they marked the beginning of the slow demise of peak TV.
With that modest beginning, Netflix had more than a decade to spend at a loss, build scale (capturing an estimated 80 percent of households in the Americas and then move internationally) and achieve profitability.
Studios and networks had become masters of theatrical distribution, syndication sales/channel programming.
But those channels are different from building a streaming platform and making it work efficiently, effectively.
At the same time, they often had to do it to the detriment of their proven money sources.
Despite the streaming red ink, they were learning rapidly, painfully and making inroads until the year-long pandemic.
Then they were hit with the six-month plus strikes of the WGA (Writers Guild of America), SAG/AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) and associated trade unions.
Source - Paramount
The strikes delivered major concessions/agreements for the working stiffs and the union leaders about their victories and were ready for people to go back to work.
The problem is the world has changed over the years and most rapidly in recent times.
Global Entertainment - Probably from the outset, Netflix set its goal of being not just a video service for people in the Americas but for folks around the world. They knew great films/shows ignore country borders.
As quickly as two years after Netflix began streaming services in the Americas, they made it known they were going to be a global streaming video service.
They left few countries off their map - Syria, China, North Korea - and shortly after that the Russians found it difficult to watch their films/shows.
Today, they have 84.8M subscribers in the Americas and more than 283M globally.
One of the key agreements to deliver entertainment in the 190 countries was that 30-40 percent of the projects had to be created/produced locally.
No prob!
Global Facilities - In countries and cities around the globe, new modern film studios are being built incorporating advanced technologies. At the same time, countries are training their citizens in the latest creative/production techniques to attract projects such as Hungary's Korda Studios (l) and Dubai Studio City (r).
While studios and networks had focused on investing in projects, not facilities, many of the studios/sets were showing their age.
However, organizations and governments had been busy building new state-of-the-art facilities in England, France, Poland, the Middle East,
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it's given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what ...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
With John Daro, DI Colourist at Warner Bros. Water Tower Color Tuesday 23 June, 10am-1pm or 3-6pm
Restar Corporation
Tokyo
Register here
John Daro is the ...
12/06/2026
Meet The Grumpy Onion Ireland's newest online sensation, all he wants is to ...
12/06/2026
RT stays Up All Night with brand new daily 2026 FIFA World Cup Vodcast
Adding to the fun around 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament, RT has launched a brand new d...
Tax Incentives Won't Solve Hollywood's Problems 
