After two years of moving to Hollywood, BBC Studios Exec Mark Linsey had a week that he would not forget.
On January 5, 2025, the experienced British grate the crowd at the Beverley Hilton Hotel, where BBC Studios took multiple home to strikes, including The child's ring and Good In Golden Globe. Richard suffered serious ReindeerHis success because before the prize of the best limited series, saying that people were “a kind of screaming for something that occurred to the painful contradictions in being a human being.” The award season was in full swing.
Two days later, with GADD and Co heading to the home, the Linsey concentration turned stunningly. “Sleep at the beginning of the week and the absolute destruction in the background,” was his reading.
“Destruction” is a reference to the seven fires that swept Los Angeles from January 7, which resulted in 29, forcing 200,000 to evacuate and destroy more than 18,000 homes. What he felt at the time like a nightmare is now a great deal of meditation. This has led to international executives such as Linsey to evaluate the place where the global television industry is located when Hollywood has disasters, and while American producers descended to the English capital for TV shows in London, it has created a space to dismantle the broader transformations that have tortured the sector over the past two years .
As soon as it fell [in L.A. in early 2023] “There was a strike strike, then the actors' strike,” Linsi says. It was an extraordinary time. “
“It looked like Dersonin after the war.”
Linsey, the British, was not the only international executive to be affected by the disaster. When he returns to this fateful week, David George, ITV America, remembers his time in New York. “I don't think I saw this kind of destruction,” he says. “I couldn't return to my status for a few months after September 11 [the wildfires] He reminded me of that.
shark Ep Phil Gurin, who runs an international television sales set, speaks to the pluscinemaz.comduring a two -hour trip that he says has multiplied more than weakness since forest fires. The original New Yorker citizen says he always expected earthquakes in Los Angeles, but he was not fully prepared for the accompanying fires and shock, which was placed immediately.
“It seemed as if he was Dersonin after the war,” Gouren added, who says he collected his property from the emotional value in the event of the need to evacuate during the fires. “I have a lot of friends who lost everything. A friend and his wife who lived in the party went to work one morning, then they only had what was in their rights.”
Throughout these past few weeks, Gurin has been focused on the laser concentration on keeping the company lamps, but he says an event like La Wilfires makes one think of the larger picture. He says: “You find yourself feeling ridiculous talking about TV with people who lost their homes,” he says. “Mother, Small Pop” stores and neighborhood shops that have been lost and think you are lucky because many people in Biz entertainment have some means to overcome the storm. Despite, of course, not everyone.
Linsi, who spent the past few years to enter quickly in the way of life of Angelino, says that half of his employees had to move or evacuate the days after January 7, but he admired the “wonderful flexibility” of society, which was “lucky to return to his feet quickly.” At the same time, the response from the international community was “very intimate”, as phones were constantly scattered with messages from my concerned appearances.
The sources indicate that the industry meetings were concept concept in the first half of January, but a lot of daily work remained significantly. One of the residents of Los Angeles, who works with global buyers, says that the competitive nature of Hollywood means that senior executives were keen to keep things all over.
“I felt Bau with executives on the network, but production is supposed to be destroyed. Our relationship. [with American contacts] He quickly returned to normal. We had a lot of emails saying, “It has been evacuated; I hope to go back next week or so,” and now people are continuing as it was before. “
Itn produces UK Nets ITV news, Channel 4 and Channel 5, and Russell describes a strange scenario as what he was watching on the circulating news networks and social media was the thing that affected his colleagues, contacts and friends. He added, “It seemed to some extent surreal as it sits here and watching it on our news.” “Most of our main executive relationships were affected and in one case their home lost.”
Itnp decided to do everything that could be more suitable for its power points by making a document for Channel 4, entitled Hell: Los Angeles on the fire. In just 72 hours, ITNP Exec Caroline Short says this was one of the most difficult challenges she faced. “[Channel 4 news boss] Luiz Compton said we had to make her fast and we had to make her look like it's not quickly. “
Along with the time of fast lightning production, the Short team should have been aware of how the fires affect the executives who were working with them, which added a new dimension. “We will be in contact with them and warnings on their mobile phones and we were like,” Wow, do you need to go? “We had to be really keen to take care of them, but we knew that they felt that they were doing something positive.”
The documentation of these few fevering days was much more than just “telling a story about the loss of wealthy celebrities”, short pressure, and believes that this is a common wrong enlightened from the viewpoint of the global media in Los Angel and adds: “Every equal and we look at what we face.”
No Exit
Looking at the near future, as executives start heading to London to get TV shows, George asks from ITV if natural disasters such as forest fires will inhibit people from moving to Los Angeles or causing an exit. A friend of the industry who has already moved to Austin, Texas, is said, while it is said that others are considering increasing sticks to alternative production centers such as Atlanta.
“If you think about forest fires and what will happen from a real estate point of view, there was already this housing crisis, and now it will be difficult to find housing and more difficult to find insurance. I think many people will sit and say:” Do I want to be Here or do I need to be here? “
In the future, Linsey wonders whether those who might think about transition “no longer want to put their families in Los Angeles” because of the possibility of natural disasters, although he notes that he does not feel it at the present time.
Even before the fires, the MIPCTER tax credit feature in the Mipcom market indicated a sharp decrease in photography in Hollywood, where buyers are looking for cheaper alternatives in photography centers such as Central Europe and the Middle East.
However, there is a concerted effort to get TV cameras rolling again in Tinseltown, with the help of the Nascent Stay campaign in Los Angeles, which has so far collected 20,000 signatures and is supported by high -level stars including Jonathan Nolan and Paul Fig. This is very important to help those who carry a series of desperate work and who may have a great effect. “We need to request the launch of our offers in Los Angeles,” Equippers Participant founder Paul W. Downs in the last critics selection awards.
Gourne reveals that a group of local producers are conducting tight discussions about what they can do for production to Los Angeles significantly, with talks about the urgent need to improve local tax credits, for example. “There must be a way to keep the works here,” he says. “If you have built a 100 -year industry, the entire economy of Los Angeles is directed around this industry and leaves it terrible.” “Whether international offers begin to return to Los Angeles, a cameras still must be seen.”
Industry economics
Patured the strategic celebration mainly from the American entertainment giants, the economy of the industry has certainly been shaken over the past two years, and the ripples around the world have felt, which the executives say was more clearly focused through forest fires. “It is something else that we did not need,” says Gourne.
Commercial and commercial reports have been controlled so far this year by the departure of Americans from the advanced joint market, which have significant effects on obtaining offers. One of Linsey's initial tasks when he landed in Los Angeles was the research ghosts And NBC Gameshow Weaken – BBC studios. “When I agreed to go out here, that was a time when the demand for British content was high and there were many participants, but this had decreased.” “Producers should be more aware of the global market and more aware of the costs.”
With the consideration of financing, George from ITV America says that the participants, which have become very common in completing the budget of a sophisticated TV program, dipped because it is, and it is irony that it adds to the costs of the offer. “Any fat is now being reduced in the budget,” he added. “With many people, there are many people who are trying to serve this and this increases costs. Everyone is looking for a model cleaner.”
But Wayne Garvi of Sony Pictures, who played a role in one of the most participating deals in this contract, BBC-Disney+ doctor Renewal, collides with an optimistic tone because it describes the current state of “short -term luster”, – music for many ears. “Although financing and appetite are not what it was, I think this is a re -calibration and will take things later this year,” said Jarfi.
It is interesting that Garvi is wondering whether there is another other shift in America – some of Donald Trump's return to the White House – will start influencing how American specializations play on the TV market.
“How the industry reconciles with the fact that Trump won the popular vote and how the entertainment industry will be very impressive.” “You may see a change in the type of content captured. But again this is part of the constantly changing flow, which is one of the reasons that make us in this game.”
Garvi rejects the idea that the current conflict proves that the international television industry has become excessively dependent on the states and says that there are money that can be found such as Australia and Western Europe.
The executives we are talking to are committed to the hope that the industry will find its way from the current distress and that Execs are not anything if not the problem solving. Linsey returns to January 5, when GADD, the creative genius behind it The child's ringThe house was falling in the world. “What happened with forest fires was reminding us of Covid,” Linsey adds. “People are working on how they continue to create creative with some restrictions around them. You have to believe in the quality of your thoughts.”
