Reality television production appears to be about the only real bright spot for below-the-line workers in the local entertainment industry. Reality programming was just about the only primetime content shot on location in Los Angeles for the first two quarters; production has risen 18 percent since Jan. 1.
Location Reality TV production now makes up more than half of all location television production, according to FilmL.A., the agency charged with processing filming permits throughout the county.
Permits for location shoots for television pilots are down 47 percent, production of location shoots for television sitcoms are down 36 percent and location television dramas are down by 4 percent compared with the first two quarters of 2007, according to a recent FilmL.A. report.
From April through June, location production increased 85 percent for television dramas, 72 percent for reality series, 24 percent for TV pilots and 7 percent for sitcoms, when compared to the same period last year, according to FilmL.A.
The increase can be traced to the writers’ strike, which delayed production from the first quarter to the second.
Meanwhile, permitted days of location feature film production during the second quarter increased 9 percent, compared with the same period last year.
FilmL.A. executives said that this was the category’s strongest quarterly performance since 2001.
Location commercial production gained 2 percent during the second quarter, when compared with the same period last year.
Poker Facelift
In an effort to draw the best hand in the arena of televised poker play, World Poker Tour Enterprises recently cut a distribution deal with Fox Sports Network.
Los Angeles-based WPT is currently distributed by the Game Show Network.
The new deal means that one-hour segments of WPT will now be broadcast on Sunday nights between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. when its seventh season begins this fall.
Steve Lipscomb, WPT founder and chief executive, said that the move to FSN will boost its audience from approximately 600,000 to 1.2 million households across the country.
“ESPN’s World Series of Poker” is the top-rated show in the category.
Down Times
It was a week of what was called “a very scary freefall” for the Los Angeles Times.
Facing a burden of $12.8 billion in debt, Times owner Sam Zell recently ousted Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller. Zell had said he would give his local publishers autonomy, but would hold them accountable for financial results. Hundreds of workers were let go as well, including some of the paper’s top reporters.
Hiller is the third publisher to have left the daily newspaper’s top slot since the Tribune Co. took over in 2000. Zell acquired the paper and other Tribune Co. assets in 2007.
“The Times is in the middle of a very scary freefall right now,” said Frank Sotomayor, associate director at USC’s Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism.
Sotomayer, who was an editor at the Times for 35 years, said that beyond pressures from the abundance of free news online and lackluster ad sales, a decade or more of grocery and department store mergers have shrunk the pool of advertisers.
“Even if the Times rides out the current economic downturn, they have cut into the very strength of the paper,” Sotomayer said. “I’m afraid that losing some of the paper’s top hitters will translate to fewer readers in the long run.”
Image Deals
DVD distributor Image Entertainment Inc. has started to work on its comedy skills. The Chatsworth company has been expanding its licensing deals to include theatrical releases and is now getting into stand-up comedy.
The company recently amended its exclusive distribution agreement with Los Angeles-based Levity Productions to boost its comedy title library.
The Levity amendment includes distribution rights to discs by comedian Jeff Dunham, a Comedy Central staple who has sold about 1 million copies of his last two stand-up DVDs, “Arguing with Myself” and “Spark of Insanity.” Both will now be distributed by Image.
Odds & Ends
The Jewish Channel, which can been seen in Los Angeles on Time Warner Cable’s video-on-demand service, recently signed a deal with Verizon FiOS TV, which will carry it on Verizon’s video-on-demand library. Viewers can subscribe for $5.99 per month. FiOS TV is available from Camarillo to Long Beach and Huntington Beach, and throughout much of the Inland Empire. Verizon FiOS reaches more than 500,000 homes throughout Southern California and is on track to reach 1 million households by year-end, according to the company. French-speaking residents of Palos Verdes can now view TV5, the French cable channel, on Cox Communications cable TV network. TV5 has been available in Los Angeles on Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable and Comcast Digital Cable.
Staff reporter Brett Sporich can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 226
