“The news is broken, we may not be able to put the pieces back together,” former NCS White House Correspondent Jim Acosta instructed a packed Burbank City Hall on Friday, warning of the rise of leisure business oligarchs and “media domination.”
“We need to talk about busting up big media,” Acosta insisted. “This is not America what we’re seeing now.”
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Citing a “danger to our democracy,” Acosta referred to as Donald Trump’s attacks on the media “an assault on our freedom of speech … taking us down the road of Putin and China to state-controlled media.” An previous and fixed thorn in Trump’s paw, Acosta definitely had one thing to say about David Ellison’s pending $111 billion buy of Warner Bros Discovery – the house owners of NCS.
Taking a swing at “partisan hacks” operating CBS News and the likelihood of more job losses like we saw today, and “self-censoring,” the journalist was talking Friday at Sen. Adam Schiff’s “Lights, Camera, Competition”: Promoting American Film Production occasion within the former house of the Tonight Show. With an occasion lineup that included The Pitt’s Noah Wyle, IATSE president Matthew Loeb, Jax Deluca, Executive Director of Future Film Coalition, longtime manufacturing incentive proponent Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA) and HBO alum Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA) in attendance, the gathering toggled its break up focus. California Attorney General Rob Bonta (who’s investigating the Paramount-WBD deal & main the multi-state go well with against the Nexstar-Tegna merger) didn’t converse in the course of the session, however was sitting within the entrance room with a smile on his face. At one level, as the advantages of a federal tax incentive had been debated, Acosta threw within the thought of a tax credit score for “independent journalism” to show the consolidation and ideological tide.
With that, whereas there are few issues on which Trump and Schiff agree, each are on the identical web page on the subject of maintaining Hollywood manufacturing within the U.S. However, on the identical time, the MAGA kingpin and the Democrat who reps Hollywood are somewhere else it appears on the subject of Paramount merging with Warner Bros Discovery.
Ellison has promised editorial independence for NCS, however with the path CBS has gone underneath its information editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, these pledges strike many because the Paramount CEO saying what he must say to get his deal authorised. Warning in regards to the potential penalties of Skydance founder Ellison and his father, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, proudly owning each CBS and NCS, Acosta’s remarks picked up on a placard quoting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week criticizing the media over its Iran struggle protection.
“The public can sniff out what’s going on here,” Acosta proclaimed, pointing to a current media hit checklist from Trump final week and payouts and different strikes seemingly undertaken to placate the White House. They are “a shakedown to a wannabe dictator,” Acosta added, gathering a spherical of applause within the room.
Turning to the will for a federal program although by no means letting the merger out of his sight, Schiff declared that the cruel decline in U.S. manufacturing “is not a Hollywood backlot story, it’s a Main Street story.”
Pushing for Congress to behave on a federal program, Schiff wasn’t alone in pushing for higher initiative from DC to enhance tax credit score applications that exist in states like California, New York and Georgia. “Without a comprehensive federal policy response, the U.S. risks turning its back on a signature American industry,” IATSE chief Loeb stated, with The Pitt’s Wyle by his aspect.
“Federal policymakers must act to level the playing field and make the U.S. film and television industry more competitive on the global stage,” Loeb added (learn L his full remarks under). “A globally competitive, labor-based incentive for U.S. production that supplements state incentives is essential to return and maintain film and television jobs in America.
“We must ensure that the American film industry is not sacrificed for corporate scale and control,” the Future Film Coalition’s Deluca stated to the assembled politicians and onlookers. “A stronger Hollywood is built not through consolidation, but through competition, fair markets, and policies that sustain independent storytelling.”
As numerous audio system differed over whether or not it was too late to show issues round, in addition to the prospects of AI, Schiff famous the current lack of greater than 41,000 business jobs in L.A. County and the way 45% of American TV and movie manufacturing was shot outdoors the nation in 2025.
Looking on the significance of state applications and a proposed 15%-19% federal program, Emmy winner Wyle added: “It is vital to the strength of our industry and our city to support these incentives. It’s an investment on our city’s most precious commodity and biggest asset. It’s an investment in our people.” (Read his full remarks under.)
“It’s going to be all about the dollars,” Loeb stated, slicing to the chase of a federal movie/TV incentive program. “It’s all about money at the end of the day.”
Here are Wyle’s full remarks:
I’m grateful to Senator Schiff for extending the invitation to talk with you at the moment and assist him in his effort to enact a Federal tax incentive for U.S based mostly movie and tv manufacturing.
As an Angelino with generational roots to this metropolis and a “seasoned” member of its artistic neighborhood – advocacy for Los Angeles based mostly manufacturing is one thing near my coronary heart. Over the final 6 years the combination impact of tasks leaving the state seeking tax credit, the pandemic, and final yr’s fires- has been a close to cratering of our as soon as thriving business. We misplaced 42,000 movie and television jobs in LA county between 2022 and 2024. And As of final yr high-budget productions are down 43% .
Admittedly, It’s actually exhausting to shoot a television present in LA. And it’s actually costly. Prohibitively so.
Unless… you undertake an financial mannequin – which takes full benefit of the CA tax incentive – and in our case asks personnel to simply accept reductions in charges within the hopes that the hypothesis will repay.
I used to be requested to take part in at the moment’s listening to – to inform a hit story. The Pitt has blessedly develop into proof of that speculative idea and I’m completely happy to report- will begin capturing season 3 this summer season – A rising tide has lifted all boats.
In season 1, underneath the three.0 tax program, our present acquired a 20% tax rebate on many non-Above-the-line prices. Our sample funds per episode was roughly $6,659,221. Based on that gross quantity we bought a rebate of $767, 751 per episode.
Our complete season 1 spend was roughly $99, 888, 000. After the rebate our adjusted spend was $88, 372, 050. We had been capable of save over 11 million {dollars}, roughly the price of two full episodes.
How did we spend the cash?
72% went to labor. Local forged and crew compensation. That’s roughly $62, 000,000. We had 590 full time and half time crew jobs.
The remaining 28% was spent with native distributors on items and companies. That’s about $24,000,000 spent on native companies. $4.6 million went to background performers. Another million and a half on meals companies. That’s direct influence.
Then there’s the oblique impact- the ripple impact of that money- which in flip stimulates further financial exercise. It’s estimated that the procurement related to The Pitt season one stimulated a $22.6 million contribution to the State’s GDP alongside the home provide chain. The present’s expenditure on inputs of products and companies from domestically based mostly suppliers additionally stimulated 150 full time jobs throughout California.
The induced influence of our forged and crew spending together with the employees alongside the availability chain in flip stimulated much more financial development. It’s estimated that the wage-financed spending of native manufacturing crews and staff at domestically based mostly suppliers stimulated $40.3 million towards California’s GDP in the course of the interval of manufacturing.
The backside line is that the estimated complete influence of the primary season of The Pitt contributed round $125 million in the direction of the State’s GDP throughout our manufacturing interval.
That’s proof of idea. It is significant to the power of our business and our metropolis to assist these incentives. It’s an funding on our metropolis’s most valuable commodity and largest asset. It’s an funding in our individuals.
Here are Loeb’s remarks:
Good morning Senator Schiff & Representatives. I wish to thanks for the invitation to take part on this vital listening to on behalf of the over 170,000 behind-the-scenes leisure staff of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE).
Film and tv manufacturing creates good-paying, family-sustaining union jobs, and it’s vital that Paramount Skydance’s proposed buy of Warner Brothers Discovery be evaluated from the angle of American staff.
The lack of any independently working producer and distributor of movie and tv content material may have profound impacts for leisure staff. Over the final decade, we’ve got seen American studios offshoring manufacturing at alarming charges. As regulators and elected officers think about the Paramount-Warner mixture, we’re asking that individual consideration be paid to making sure that home manufacturing doesn’t undergo additional.
When main corporations merge, staff typically pay the worth first. IATSE’s place is that regulators ought to think about the impact of consolidation on labor markets, not solely on client costs. In 2023, IATSE and the Directors Guild of America (DGA) issued joint feedback in assist of revised FTC-DOJ Merger Guidelines – an vital course correction that restored the federal authorities’s potential to evaluation the influence of consolidation and vertical integration within the leisure business on our members and different staff within the movie and tv business.
Past studio mergers have meant fewer jobs and disruptions to manufacturing. Redundancies following the Warner Bros.-Discovery and Disney-Fox mergers led to reductions in workforce which have the potential to happen downstream from a Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
If Paramount Skydance is profitable of their proposed acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery, our main curiosity is holding them accountable to the commitments they’ve made to Californian and American staff. CEO David Ellison has made a public dedication that Paramount Studios and Warner Bros. Studios will every produce a minimal of 15 high-quality characteristic movies per yr, for a complete of a minimum of 30 characteristic movies yearly. That stage of manufacturing is required within the United States if IATSE members are to proceed to have the ability to make a dwelling within the business.
Work within the leisure business is precarious. It is primarily venture, or “gig” based mostly, which means most IATSE staff carry out freelance work outdoors of what’s thought-about “regular employment.” We’ve been within the “gig” financial system since 1893. Project-based work in movie and tv manufacturing could be as brief as a day for a business shoot, a number of months for a movie manufacturing, or a pair years for a recurring tv sequence. Entertainment staff can have a number of, if not dozens, of employers every year and people staff depend on project-based job alternatives to assist themselves and their households.
Employment for below-the-line staff in Hollywood is down some 45 million hours per yr since 2022. According to the January 2026 ProdPro report, the U.S. share of world manufacturing has dropped from 52% to 38% throughout the identical interval.
The American movie and tv business faces an pressing menace from worldwide competitors. Foreign governments have efficiently lured movie and tv productions, and the multitude of jobs they create, away from the United States with aggressive tax incentives and subsidies. Films meant for preliminary launch within the U.S. are more and more being shot abroad — and American staff are paying the worth.
In only a few years, IATSE members have misplaced tens of 1000’s of jobs throughout the United States. That’s 1000’s of households, small companies, and communities throughout the nation feeling the financial hardship of a shrinking business.
Movies and tv exhibits created primarily for U.S. audiences are being produced overseas — not due to higher expertise or know-how, however as a result of different international locations acknowledge the worth of those productions and are providing sturdy monetary incentives that the U.S. merely doesn’t match. While U.S. states have supplied tax credit for manufacturing, lately state incentives haven’t been sufficient to forestall productions from shifting abroad.
Without a complete federal coverage response, the U.S. dangers turning its again on a signature American business. Federal policymakers should act to stage the enjoying discipline and make the U.S. movie and tv business extra aggressive on the worldwide stage. A globally aggressive, labor-based incentive for U.S. manufacturing that dietary supplements state incentives is important to return and preserve movie and tv jobs in America.
IATSE is extremely grateful to have champions like Senator Schiff and Representative Friedman working to unravel this challenge. Their strategic efforts have constructed momentum in the direction of the introduction of a federal movie and tv manufacturing tax incentive and IATSE will proceed its tireless advocacy with Congress and the White House to attain that aim.
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