American Idol is pulling its production out of Los Angeles and moving to Atlanta for its 25th season. Fremantle, which co-produces the show with Sony Pictures Television and 19 Entertainment, is making the shift as Georgia dangles a 30 percent tax credit for unscripted and reality shows that spend at least $500,000.
California doesn’t offer that kind of deal for a show like Idol, and the loss is another data point in a broader collapse of on-location production in Los Angeles.
The numbers back it up. According to TheWrap, even with California’s expanded production tax credit having drawn 170 films and TV shows to the state, on-location shoot days in Los Angeles fell 12 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2026. Only 4,711 shoot days were logged, down from 5,394 in the same quarter last year and 5,121 the quarter before that. That puts the current quarter 36 percent below the five-year average. For perspective, Los Angeles recorded 8,632 shoot days in the second quarter of 2019 — a year that was itself considered a five-year low at the time.
American Idol isn’t the only production weighing an exit. The Baywatch reboot reportedly considered moving out of California due to regulatory red tape, Breitbart News has reported.
Paramount’s Potential Exit Looms Larger
The bigger threat to California’s economy is a possible relocation of Paramount, the movie studio, to a state such as Tennessee. A study from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation found that such a move would cost California between roughly 28,990 and 57,980 full-time jobs statewide, spanning multiple industries, and between $10.6 billion and $21.2 billion in annual revenue losses.
“It should be emphasized that these estimated job losses include direct, indirect and induced jobs, capturing the ripple effects through Paramount’s supply chains in California as well as the economic activity of household spending,” the study said. “Consequently, the job losses pertain to all California industries rather than solely to motion picture and television production.”
The same study found upside if Paramount instead acquired Warner Bros. and followed through on a pledge to release 30 films in theaters annually — potentially creating between 1,020 and 2,760 jobs across all California industries, along with between $377.7 million and $1.01 billion in economic activity.
For now, Idol’s move to Atlanta stands as one more sign that production incentives in other states are pulling work away from Los Angeles faster than California’s own tax credits can keep it in place.
