The US film and television production market has lost some serious ground, according to an alarming new report examining the industry over the past 25 years.
Studios used to spend 74% of their film production budgets in the US 25 years ago, and they now spend 42% of it, according to the report from a coalition of Hollywood unions, including IATSE, the Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA.
Meanwhile, when it comes to TV, the number has fallen by about a third, from 94% to 64%.
The report comes as Congress considers whether a 20 to 30% production incentive would help activate the domestic film and TV industry.
Those who support the incentive say the US needs to counter incentives already provided by other countries such as Canada, the UK and others, arguing that state-based incentives aren’t enough.
Congress members have looked into the issue of production jobs in the US going down since the end of Peak TV in 2022.
However, the report, conducted by EY, indicates the longevity of the downturn, as the movie and TV business became global in the early 2000s.
The report says that while productions have grown substantially, the US shares a smaller stake of it.
The study looked into movies and TV episodes that take a significant amount of funds to make, such as films with budgets of $5 million or more, in 2025 dollars, and TV episodes costing at least $1 million, for about 40 minutes or shorter, and at least $1.7 million for episodes longer than 40 minutes.
In the past 25 years, the amount major studios spent on production rose from $3 billion to $7 billion. TV spending increased even more during that time, from $933 million to $8.4 billion.
However, with all the differences that exist with the current TV landscape from that of the early 2000s, the report said that it was hard to draw out comparisons.
“The rise of streaming fundamentally altered production scale, budgets, season lengths, and release models, creating discontinuities in what constitutes a comparable television series across periods,” the report said.
The report also only quantifies the number of productions that have gone overseas, but it doesn’t explain the reason for it.
Most of the films that have gone overseas are ones with big budgets.
The US market’s share of the 25 most expensive films declined from 74% to 34% in the past 25 years. Those films were a quarter of all the ones major studios made, but they represent half of the crew and two-thirds of the budgets.
“This highlights that production budgets are heavily concentrated within a small subset of films,” the report said. “Patterns observed within this group generally reflect the broader analysis trends, albeit with a somewhat larger decline.”
The report says that if the movie business in the US had remained the same in the past 25 years, then an additional $4 billion would have been spent every year on TV and films in the country.
Last month, the Motion Picture Association released a study indicating that a federal incentive would generate about $22 billion in annual domestic production spending by 2035. The report warned that if Congress doesn’t act, then the US share of the market will continue to decline.
Unions will be coming together for a protest in Glendale, Calif. with Sen. Adam Schiff and other Democrats Tuesday.
Schiff, along with other legislators, introduced a federal credit proposal that would create a pretty generous incentive for studios.
With President Donald Trump’s support, the bill is expected to be signed into law by the end of 2026.
Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters
California Post News: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedIn California Post Sports Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X California Post Opinion California Post Newsletters: Sign up here! California Post App: Download here! Home delivery: Sign up here!Page Six Hollywood: Sign up here!
The post Alarming Hollywood report reveals massive decline in US film and TV production appeared first on New York Post.
