Odd Lots · Friday, September 25, 2026
Shoot days in Los Angeles have fallen by nearly half since a 2016 peak of 40,000, dropping to under 20,000 in 2024. This decline, exacerbated by the 2023 strikes and the rise of streaming impacting traditional cable production, is having significant ripple effects on the local economy, impacting restaurants and other small businesses that relied on the industry's activity.
“Shoot days in LA, uh, hit a high in 2016, about 40,000 shoot days. And from there it sort of leveled out to around 37,000 by 2019. Okay. Pandemic hits the shoot days collapse, obviously. There's a backlog. And then in 2021, they sort of skyrocket again. 2022, we're back to 2019 numbers, around 37,000. The next year, 2023, the strikes hit. Shoot days fall again to 25,000. The next year, people are sort of hoping for a recovery. They end up at 23,000. Shoot days fall again. The mantra I think a lot of people heard in the city was survive till 25. That was like a phrase in the entertainment industry here. And instead, shoot days fell again to under 20,000. So that is half of what it was in 2016. Maybe. Maybe.”
“And it's like, it has enormous ripple effects and on tourism as well just like the what we're presenting to the rest of the country changes with the slowdown in in in production shows like insecure like had huge impacts on parts of the city that that show really brought to life and people move to live that experience.”