L.A. Sound Stages: The New Dead Mall?
Bat mitzvahs to live sports, anyone? As production declines, new uses for empty acres of studio emerge — with some hope ahead in 2026
I write about TV from L.A. I interviewed Universal TV president Erin Underhill about the new deal structure her studio is beta-testing with writers and MRC’s Jenna Santoianni about how indie studios can beat the big guys. I’m at elaine@theankler.com
Happy Monday, Series Business readers. Panel season is booming — last week I did the moderating equivalent of a two-a-day at the gym, shepherding a chat with Bento Box co-founder Joel Kuwahara and other animation specialists at the AI on the Lot conference in Culver City on Thursday morning, before spending the evening moderating a SAG-AFTRA panel for the cast of Squid Game’s second season as part of Netflix’s FYSEE LA.
Choi Seung-Hyun and Lee Byung Hun in particular had the crowd at Netflix’s Tudum Theater going wild, especially when Lee surprised the audience by responding in English to a question about stunt choreography — and Choi pretended he might do the same.
Next week, I’ll be in Canada at the annual Banff World Media Festival — the most scenic fest of the year! — for a keynote chat with Tubi CEO Anjali Sud, a showrunners’ panel featuring the St. Denis Medical guys and other scribes, and an AI panel with both AI technologists and the Writers Guild of Canada exec director Victoria Shen. It’s sure to be an interesting few days in the north; let me know if you’ll be there too.
So: When was the last time you were on a sound stage for a film or TV series? Even if you work in production, the answer is likely “not lately.” One well-known director recently told me that the last time they worked on the 15-stage Fox lot, their production was the only one active that day. And FilmLA’s recent sound stage report was bleak: Average stage occupancy plunged to 63 percent in 2024, down six points even from a strike-ridden 2023.
Compare that to 2016, when stages hummed along at 96 percent occupancy level, or the we-all-agree-it-was-a-bubble Peak TV year of 2022 when levels bounced back up to 90 percent during the post-pandemic recovery. Investors from Blackstone to TPG have stakes in sound stage properties, so it’s not just Hollywood worried about production. Just days ago, sound stage titan Hudson Pacific Properties — the Blackstone-backed owner of Sunset Bronson Studios, which is leased to Netflix — got hit with a credit rating cut. S&P Global called out the company’s “weakened studio business performance” and declining leased studio space, which dipped to 73.8 percent from 76.9 percent the year prior.
“While we expect production activity will increase over the next year or two, the timing and visibility into improving studio performance is also uncertain,” said the S&P analysts, in what was arguably the sunniest sentence in that whole note. It has a negative outlook on HPP.
On a macro level, sound stages are in trouble — a reflection of the times. Production continues to be offshored to states and countries with more appealing tax incentives and cost structures, the correction from Peak TV means fewer series are being made, and the post-strike job market is still sluggish. While Gov. Gavin Newsom and others are pushing for a big new California tax credit plus other legislative moves to make filming here more accessible (#StayinLA), the industry is still reeling from a few years of blows, and some entertainment workers have left L.A. behind.
But this is an industry full of scrappy players, and many of them are going full Chumbawamba: They get knocked down, but they get up again, you’re never gonna keep them down. In this week’s Series Business, I dig into:
📉 The sharp slump in L.A. sound stage usage — especially for episodic TV
The five dominant sound stage operators in L.A., ranked by square footage — and the hit shows that still call them home
My interview with Frank Patterson, president of Trilith Studios, on why Georgia’s TV pipeline is seeing more activity this year
📈 Signs of life: How Hudson Pacific and other stage titans are bracing for a rebound — or a reinvention
Surprising ways sound stages are pivoting — from fashion shoots to video game activations to bat mitzvahs
FilmLA president Paul Audley’s take on the hidden upsides of a battered industry — and where the smart money’s headed
🏗️ The next wave of construction in SoCal — and which projects may never break ground
How AI and virtual production could reshape sound stages — and finally make L.A.-based creativity scalable again
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CBS Radford was purchased by a real estate company a few years ago, so I wonder if and when the drive for profits will pressure them to tear down those venerable stages -- where I worked for the last decade-plus of my career -- and convert them to so-called "luxury condos"?