2024 : Where's the Work?

As this week starts getting into February, the most common question I get is what's going on ? Where's the work? I've gotten thin reports on filming in Vancouver and Atlanta with the crews wondering what's going on. When I checked the New York City film office information, I saw 9 episodic series listed and 4 films listed. Source - https://www.nyc.gov/site/mome/industries/filming-now-in-nyc.page

Looking into filming in Los Angeles was also daunting. I was reading this Deadline article that chronicles 2023 (always known now as the STRIKE year) and filming was down 32% and in Q4 2023 - even more!! Source -

https://deadline.com/2024/01/los-angeles-production-shoot-days-2023-1235794202/

So why is this happening? There are a few answers. One of them is that when the double strikes hit the film and television business, that ground filming to a halt. These projects are often millions of dollars and involve approvals coming out of numerous meetings. All of that takes time. New shows are slated to begin after the Super Bowl. Hopefully, clients and advertisers will see content they like and yearn to have their brand included so that some of these commercial scripts we've seen floating around will actually get approved.

The fear is that advertising is involved in a slow evolution by starting to adapt to actual viewer habits. My teenager briefly had a television in her room. She finally had me take it out as she never used it. She preferred to either stream content on her computer or for movies she would watch them with me on the biggest television screen in the house which is in my bedroom (of course, very Gen X).

Each morning, my fourth grade twins seek new information about what's going on in the world so they look to YouTube shorts. In fact, YouTube shorts has grown viewership 66% from 2022 to 2023. There is advertising on YouTube. Perhaps it is during this turnaround time that creatives are trying to wrap their heads around how to do authentic advertising based around the platforms the users are watching. At least, that's my hope. YouTube has 2 billion active daily users. Source - https://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/

The good news here is - as I said - YouTube does have advertising. How many times have you watched a commercial to watch the commercial you were originally looking for? That's a daily occurrence for me.

The other media juggernaut for 2024 is the US election. Media buying is quickly going to get out of control. So if the clients produce the commercials, is there a place to air them? The regular broadcast options may be thinning due to the political ad buys - but YouTube and Amazon will be happy to take the advertising buys !

Thank you for reading and please reach out with any comments. I appreciate your attention. Check out my latest offerings here for when your project gets approved - www.carolynreps.com

Or email me - [email protected]