LA Losing Foothold in TV Pilot Production

It’s been a banner year for television production. During the 2010-11 development cycle, a record 169 shows developed pilots. Cable TV was cranking out two and half times as many pilots as the previous cycle. Normally that would be good news for the LA production world. Just six years ago, 82 percent of all pilots were shot in LA. According to a new report from the non-profit group FilmL.A., however, that number shrank to 51 percent this cycle. As a result, despite the banner year for TV production, less pilots were shot in LA than in 2004-05 cycle.

Luckily, as you can see above, it’s not all bad. Overall, we have significantly more pilots than we did the last few years. Each pilot produced here equals about 150 jobs. But it does look like we’re going to have to start sharing the wealth of the new TV boom.