In a previous article I penned a worrying set of numbers. Los Angeles shoot days plunged to 19,694 in 2025. These are the lowest levels outside the pandemic year. That is down from over 36,000 in 2022. Soundstage occupancy is stuck in the low 60s after years of 90%-plus. Employment in the sector has dropped sharply, with tens of thousands of jobs gone as a result of Hollywood layoffs.
Meanwhile, studios are laying off hundreds (Sony last week), merging into debt-laden giants, and replacing expensive late-night shows with syndicated reruns.
In the case of Stephen Colbert’s cancellation, it led to a lucrative deal with Byron Allen. He is actually paying CBS to put actual funny comedians in that time slot.
Entertainment Hiring Across Industries That KILLED Whole Companies
The post-pandemic, post-strike hangover is brutal. The forced diversity initiatives pushed by the Hollywood progressives were costly. Not just in talent pools being drained, but by an insurgence of unqualified candidates for representation’s sake.
The logo for Disney+ – YouTube, Disney+
Streaming wars drove massive overproduction that audiences and advertisers could not sustain. Of course no one asked for or even indicated they wanted anything being made. Now the correction is here: fewer starts, more consolidation, and strategic restructurings that mean real people losing real jobs.
The happened in all industries not just entertainment. Gaming, Hollywood, marketing, and even accounting. Hires made with artificially full coffers were never going to be sustainable. So rot set in at all levels.
And Now, The Great Consolidation
The Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery deal (shareholder vote April 23, close targeted for Q3) promises $6 billion in synergies. Synergies which everyone knows means heavy duplication cuts across thousands of roles. Yes, Sometimes redundancy is a bad thing.
The logo for Paramount Skydance – Paramount
Speaking of bad, Bad Robot is shrinking and fleeing LA. Jeff Shell is out again amid scandal. Sony is trimming mid-management. CBS is outsourcing late night. The list goes on and on.
What the Rot Cost? A Story at Scale
This is not a temporary dip. It’s structural. California policies, high costs, competition from other states and countries, and Big Tech eating the lunch of traditional players have all accelerated the bleed.
Bleed, a word chosen with intention as that at this scale, it’s deadly for industry.
Josh D’Amaro by Cinderella Castle – Disney
The people who rode the wave of easy money and political posturing are now watching the tide go out and realizing they built on sand. Disney, one of the forerunners in the politics first crowd, set into projects to restructure all the tried and true pathways of the past. Reimagining Tomorrow became a disastrous choice that their new CEO Josh D’Amaro has no support to correct.
Institutional Costs Require Simplifications
Outcomes for the types of consolidation we will be seeing will centralize debt load for redistribution. It will eliminate a large number of jobs. It will call on outside contractors for more input. None of that is the big question.
The bigger question: When the dust settles after layoffs, will what is left still feel like Hollywood, or just a smaller, more leveraged content factory feeding the remaining streamers and tech platforms?
How do you feel about these Hollywood layoffs and production downsizing? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
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