Sen. Adam Schiff has drafted a bill to create a federal incentive for film and TV production, but said Friday that he still working to gain Republican co-sponsors.
Schiff held a hearing at Burbank City Hall to build support for the measure, noting that Los Angeles County has lost 42,000 entertainment jobs in the last two years.
“These are great jobs and we want to keep them here at home,” he said. “It’s not rocket science how we do that. It’s largely drafted. It needs to be bipartisan. We are working to gather bipartisan support for this.”
Though he has been working on the idea for more than a year, Schiff had not previously spoken about it publicly in any detail.
He invited Noah Wyle, the star of “The Pitt,” and IATSE President Matt Loeb to testify at the hearing on the value of production jobs and the need for a federal incentive. He also highlighted concerns about the merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros., warning that it could lead to another wave off layoffs in the industry.
While few expect the merger to have much difficulty clearing federal antitrust review, state officials have said that they intend to take a hard look at it.
“We are engaged currently in a rigorous review and we have shown that we won’t hesitate when we think that the law is being broken,” said Rob Bonta, the California attorney general, after the hearing.
Bonta noted that his office filed to block the merger of Tegna and Nexstar, which the Federal Communications Commission approved on Thursday, and that it has continued to pursue an antitrust case against Ticketmaster and Live Nation, even after the federal government withdrew.
“We don’t expect the federal government to play the role that it should be playing,” Bonta said. “It could still, and so we hope it will. There’s always time to change course. But because they’ve withdrawn we’ve stepped into that vacuum and that gap and done more.”
Schiff was joined at the hearing by three Democratic members of Congress from Southern California. He also heard testimony from Jim Acosta, the former CNN correspondent, about the potential harms to the network if Paramount and Larry and David Ellison are able to take over.
Acosta did not hold back, blasting Paramount’s management of CBS under Bari Weiss, and calling the Ellisons a “MAGA-friendly oligarchic family.”
“You basically have partisan hacks running CBS News,” he said. “Imagine those editorial decisions moving over to CNN…. This is a full frontal assault on every type of media option we have.”
Loeb, whose union represents 130,000 below-the-line workers, noted that while Paramount has pledged to make 30 films a year after the merger, it has not pledged to make them in the U.S.
“Thirty pictures doesn’t mean anything unless they’re done here,” he said, adding that a federal incentive will be needed to keep those jobs from going overseas. “What is the future going to look like if we don’t put a tax incentive in place?”
Rep. Lou Correa, a Democrat from Orange County, asked the witnesses what guardrails could be placed on the merger to protect workers and media.
Jax Deluca, executive director of the Future Film Coalition, argued that conditions of approval would not be sufficient to protect jobs and independent filmmakers. Her group has launched a campaign to block the merger outright.
Acosta concurred.
“To me, if this merger goes through the guardrails are gone,” he said. “It seems to me the fix is in.”
Wyle was on hand to testify to the success of the California film and TV tax incentive. “The Pitt” received $12.2 million in tax credits for each of its first two seasons — shot at the Warner Bros. lot — and will receive $24.2 million for Season 3.
Before “The Pitt,” he worked around the country and in Canada as producers chased incentives in other jurisdictions.
“It’s hard on families. It’s hard to fracture your industry that way,” he said, noting that California’s subsidy allows productions to draw on a deep pool of local talent. “It’s vital to support these incentives. They are an investment in our city’s most precious commodity — they are an investment in its people.”
Speaking after the hearing, Schiff noted that President Trump has voiced support for tariffs on foreign-made films in order to bring production back to the U.S. While nobody in the industry supports that remedy, some have taken encouragement that Trump has at least acknowledged the problem.
“We — and I think the industry — think it makes sense to have a federal tax credit,” Schiff said. “But I think there’s great interest in this. I do expect it to be bipartisan. And it has to be.”
In his remarks, Loeb noted that the U.K. has lured Marvel productions that used to film in Georgia. Schiff said that that one idea being floated is to offer an added federal incentive to companies that bring back such jobs from overseas.
California has such a provision in its tax credit program, whereby TV shows that relocate from other states or countries are given a 5% bonus on top of the baseline credit.
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