Second in a series on how the economic downturn is affecting the Industry.
If your search for television jobs is looking bleak, it may not be your industry's fault.
The problem might be your state's economy.
A record number of TV pilots were made last year, thanks to an increasing number of cable stations getting into original programming. This has been a windfall year for cable and network ad spending. But the money isn't necessarily trickling down to rank-and-file actors, writers and other professionals in Los Angeles, the heart of the industry.
Also read: Hollywood & the Job Crisis: Just How Bad Is It?
Just as television has splintered from three major networks into hundreds of stations, shows and jobs are branching out to more and more cities.
A record-setting 169 pilots were shot last year, according to FilmL.A. The increase was fueled by a cable boom: For the first time, more than half the pilots were for cable networks.
That's good news for the industry overall, and for stars and showrunners pulling big salaries. But in Los Angeles, some struggling actors and writers are still having a tough time finding work. Or making less money. Or both.
Some of the factors – such as contracting budgets forcing some shows to make across-the-board cuts – are industry-wide. But others are California-specific.
California -- which has the eighth-largest economy on earth -- must perenially weigh the needs of Hollywood against those of struggling schools, crumbling neighborhoods and overcrowded prisons.
Read also: Hollywood Unemployed: A-List Execs Kicked to the Curb
The cash-strapped Golden State hasn't been able to compete with the tax incentives offered by other locations – especially New York and Canada – resulting in a show business jobs market that hasn't boomed even as business picks up in cities like Portland, Vancouver, Albuquerque, Toronto and Atlanta.
And, especially, in New York, which now brags an all-time record number of Big Apple-based primetime shows.
Of course, California has less need for incentives: Besides soundstages, good weather and all the other factors that created Hollywood, Los Angeles has vast reserves of talent, from actors and writers to lighting technicians and camera operators.
But thanks to an expanding industry, crews in smaller cities are getting more experienced every day.
What Los Angeles needs are more dramas, which have lost airtime in the last decade to cheaper -- and often more popular -- comedy and reality shows. Dramas employ people by the hundreds, far more than other types of shows. But many of them shoot outside the city that is home to the major studios.
"From an economic standpoint, TV dramas are a golden goose that is not nesting in Los Angeles this season," said Todd Lindgren, vice president of FilmL.A.
