Sports & Entertainment Beat

California Governor Jerry Brown has taken a big step toward bringing film and television production back to California by signing a bill last week that increases the budget of its Film and Television Tax Credit Program from $100 million to $330 million.  In addition to the significant budget increase, the new bill replaces what many considered to be an arbitrary lottery selection process with one that considers eligible productions based on job creation and economic impact on the state, and it also opens up the program to films with budgets over $75 million for the first time.  California, the state most associated with the entertainment industry, has seen a sharp decrease in film and television productions occurring within the state due to an increase in the number of other states offering film and television tax incentive programs ("Incentive Programs"), a number of which offer more competitive incentives than that previously offered by California.  Since 2000, the number of states with such programs has increased from just a handful to a majority of the states, and according to Gov. Brown, the number of productions in California has been cut by half in the last 15 years.