New York's Film and Tax Credit
Business Insider, 4.5.09
by Hilary Lewis
This week the New York assembly voted to approve $350 million to fund a 30% tax credit for movies and TV shows made in-state, extending a program that last year led to such a flurry of filming that the Empire State burned through its entire $460 million fund in 10 months.
HBO's In Treatment was one of the shows that took advantage of the tax credit to move from Los Angeles to Manhattan, where shows actually get a 35% break because of the city's separate 5% tax-incentive program.
--excerpted from Q&A with HBO's Showrunner Warren Leight (formerly of CI)--
TBI: Do you think the networks will factor the new money for tax credits into their decisions about whether a show gets renewed or not?
WL: If a show’s on the bubble, it’s one more factor. If it’s a $2 million-3 million an episode show and you’re not sure about [renewing] it, and you’ve just been told that there’s a tax credit that could save $400,000 an episode, that has to influence the decision. If you can produce 22 episodes for under $50 million as opposed to for $60 million, that has to be better. Last year, Law & Order: Criminal Intent was absolutely on the bubble (no one knew if it was coming back or not). And the tax credit was why they didn’t pull the plug on the show. It probably saved that show $500,000 an episode and that made the difference between that show having a seventh season or not.
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posted by thereel @ 2:02 PM
17 Comments:
....the tax credit and the fact that Dick Wolf managed to get another season of the Mothership, for which he was quite prepared to 'sacrifice' LOCI (shame on him!)
California has just started a tax credit, so NY really had to renew this sort of thing or else they'd be losing a lot of shows back to California. Shows that originally left CA because it was cheaper to film in NY.
couldn't have said it better myself Diane!
the business of entertainment, blows. it has to suck for the actors of these shows not knowing where they'll be next year. word around my parts are certain people are thinking of moving to LA anyway. *sigh*
Certain people like whom??? USA never had their Upfront presentation 3/31...so we don't know if LOCI is even coming back for another season, I met with USA network last week and they didn't even mention it for next year, just promoted the hell out of this season and the fact that Jeff Goldblum was coming on...we are lucky I guess we even had season 7...are you implying that VDO might be relocating to LA???
I'm sorry reeladmin, but once again, someone implying they have some kind of insider knowledge that 'certain people are thinking of moving to LA' is based on pure speculation and gossip, unless they have access to VDO's brain - which I doubt.
Briena also well knows that the link you were sent with the Up Front dates is attached to a website that doesn't exist if you go looking for it.
Rant over (sorry)
Luv Lizzie K x
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The website does exist. (www.bnet.com)
Here's the link --
http://resources.bnet.com/index.php?q=network+upfront+presentations
Link to the original source of the Upfronts Calendar.
http://www.jackmyers.com/commentary/upfront-calendar/40800387.html
Well said Lizzie!
As far as the upfront party, clearly there was a mistake with the dates since it didn't occur on the 31st. Sadly I'm to the point where I question Everything that's posted.
If I could just add....Last year at the USA upfront party Bonnie Hammer was asked if CI would be renewed for another season, her reply...We haven't made a decision yet. I don't think it's unusual that they haven't made a decision regarding season 9 since season 8 hasn't even premiered yet.
You doubt everything that's posted here?
http://i.bnet.com/blogs/upfrontcalendar-crop1.jpg
...was one of the links at thereel in March for the Up Front party date. Even Google couldn't find any website called i.bnet.com
If the implicaton is the 'certain person' thinking about moving to LA is Vincent, he doesn't ass-kiss Hollyweird-types, he lived there once, and moved back to New York as soon as he could, and he can make the independent movies he loves where he likes, so he doesn't need to move his family out to California - but that would be his business, and I very much doubt he'd make a public announcement about it anyway.
Here is the link I was referring to. I'm in the TV industry and receive emails from JackMyers, which is a reputable site and popular amongst those in the Television Industry.
http://www.jackmyers.com/commentary/upfront-calendar/40800387.html
Not sure what link Lizzie was referring to, but Jack Myers listed USA as having an upfront presenation on 3/31 as well..And as I mentioned, the presentation/party was cancelled and I met with USA directly as they came to our agency to discuss new programming. Hope this clears up what link I was referring to.
The link is the correct url for the upfront graphic. If you type in www.i.bnet.com you will be directed to www.bnet.com. It's the same site.
tvbythenumbers.com also published the same calendar.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/03/13/when-will-you-know-if-your-show-is-canceled-or-renewed/14527
Since we're way off of any kind of predictable TV schedule (for a lot of reasons) for both cable networks & broadcast TV, it's hard to say just yet if we'll get a CI Season 9 or not. But I wouldn't panic just yet.
Without some Season 8 ratings to judge by, I wouldn't make a decision on Season 9 if I were USA just yet. I am sure that is what they are doing.
As for the USA upfront *party* being cancelled, that's not a huge deal. There are ways besides big pricey parties to get the word out to your sponsors about your programming options and advertiser sponsorship of it. The parties are nice but they're not necessary (in fact some advertisers hate them because they're kind of wasteful).
Having been busy hammering out labor and government regulatory issues with SAG actors (sorry I'm not in direct communication with any actor from CI although one of my newest actor friends, Scott Wilson, did do the indie film Bark; VDO's in that too but Scott & VDO had no scenes together so no he doesn't know VDO personally although he's friendly with other actors who have worked more closely with VDO such as Seymour Cassel) I can say that every company in the media business (both content producers & advertisers) is looking for places to cut costs. This is not surprising since the global economy has been on a downturn since a little before the WGA strike (figure on the summer of 2007 when everything started to fall apart, that's when US housing prices peaked, etc).
Some of the state (and in the case of CA Los Angeles the city & county) film & TV production tax credits are going away while some are being renewed. The Louisana film office is in trouble over fraud in their program (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button has big questions about its credits), NY has state-wide budget issues so they couldn't really give more money to the productions this year and some other states have had protests (Utah or New Mexico if I recall correctly) on both sides of the programs. Even the CA & LA credits recently extended are controversial.
I can't imagine any actor moving to LA unless they absolutely have to for a job (there's 10% unemployment in the whole state right now and with only some TV production going and very few films being shot it's not a great place to be looking for acting jobs or 'survival' jobs).
I also see CI ending before they would move production out of NYC (the writing staff is in LA now) because NYC is a character in *every* L&O show. It would be hard to fake that in LA or any other place.
The biggest reason I could see CI not getting renewed is due to its generous production deal to Dick Wolf...similar deals are in place for SVU & the mothership (both of which have more than 5 seasons finished and syndicated). NBC-Universal now has to advance a lot of money to make each new episode of each of the series and the license fees paid to Wolf Films are very high. Future shows on all the media companies slates broadcast or cable are looking into things like foreign co-production to get the costs of the license fees shared and/or lowered (there's a recent article on Variety.com on this very phenomenon). If the companies get a good return on investment with decent ratings for the newer shows they'll go that co-production route in the future.
But as long as the 3 L&O series get decent ratings for the money put into them they're okay.
My best advice to you is to watch as much CI as you can the second a new episode shows up on USA. And get everyone you know to do the same ;-)
Anyway I hope this posts helps a little. It's a very complex area to analyze, I'm lucky to be able to talk to working actors about it (even if they're not VDO) to get simpler explanations of what is going on and their perspectives on it all.
The good news is that it's only 5 more days to new CI episodes. I wish there were a good TV/Theatrical contract in place for SAG (there's a national board meeting on the 18th which will be very volatile) and I wish I weren't worried for the Basic Cable deal (which expires at the end of May and which directly impacts CI but as yet no negotiations have begun to work out its replacement) but we'll get there when we get there.
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