COURT DEALS BLOW TO CBS’S ELECTRONIC BILLBOARDS

Unlike its principal competitors, CBS Corp. has pretty much all of its business in broadcasting. Sure, it has its Showtime and cable sports channels, and it releases an occasional low-budget movie. But mostly it is limited to broadcasting. A significant exception is its billboard business, CBS Outdoor, which it has been attempting to fuse with […]

HALF OF U.S. SAW AT LEAST PART OF SUPER BOWL

With the current U.S. population standing at 313 million, the 111.3 million who watched Sunday’s Super Bowl Game represented one out of every three Americans. But that was the “average” number who were watching at any given time during the game. The total number who watched at least some of the game number 166.8 million […]

MORE TV PRODUCERS LURED AWAY BY TAX INCENTIVES

Even as production of television pilots booms, thanks to more original programming being produced for cable TV, the percentage being produced in Hollywood continues to dwindle, according to a new report by FilmL.A., the group that coordinates the issuance of film permits for location shooting in the area. The report indicates that while 169 pilots […]

PRODUCERS TO HOST OVERSEAS FILM COMMISSIONERS

Members of the Producers Guild of America may continually gripe about the flight of production to other states and countries, but today’s (Wednesday) Los Angeles Times reports that they are nevertheless planning to host a major conference in Burbank on June 3-5 at which hundreds of film commissioners from all over the world will provide […]

TAX CREDITS HELP REVIVE FEATURE PRODUCTION IN L.A.

Despite a slight recovery from 2009, when film production in Los Angeles suffered its steepest annual slump ever, feature film production in the city and surrounding areas in 2010 was down 62 percent from its peak in 1996, according to a study by FilmL.A., the group that acts as a clearing house for location permits […]

LAPD LAUNCHES PIRATE STING

In what officials boasted were the largest raids on counterfeit distributors in Los Angeles history, L.A. police, working with the city’s antipiracy task force, have arrested ten men and seized some $4.06 million worth of counterfeit DVDs, CDs, and apparel, city controller Wendy Greuel said. She did not break down the number of items seized […]

L.A. FILMING: UP (ONE REPORT); DOWN (ANOTHER REPORT)

There was good news and bad news coming out of FilmL.A., the group that coordinates the issuance of film permits to shoot outdoors in the Los Angeles area. The Hollywood Reporter accentuated the negative, headlining, “Few Tax Credits Spur Decline in L.A. film Shoots.” The trade paper’s lede observed that feature film location shooting dropped […]

FEATURE FILM SHOOTING IN L.A. STALLS

Suggesting that the movie and TV industries are not as immune to the recession as some financial commentators have suggested they are, FilmLA, the one-stop clearinghouse for on-location film permits in Los Angeles, said Tueday that on-location feature-film shooting during the past ten weeks fell 9 percent below the same period a year ago. The […]